Method and system for data delivery and reproduction

ABSTRACT

This application relates to a system and method for distributing title data on demand. An embodiment of the system comprises a service bureau that captures a plurality of title data. The service bureau may include an encryption device that encrypts the title data and that provides encrypted title data and a corresponding decryption key. The system may also include an entry portal. The entry portal and the service bureau may be coupled to a communications network. The entry portal allows the customer to select and order the title data and provides information to the customer that will allow selection of the title data. The system also may include a storage facility that may also be coupled to the communication network, and that stores the encrypted title data and decryption key. The system may further include a delivery device that can also be coupled to the communication network, that responds to the selection information of the customer, retrieves the encrypted title data and the decryption key from the storage facility, that may decrypt the encrypted title data using the decryption key, and that may provide the decrypted title data to the customer. In addition, the system includes a watermarking device that watermarks at least a portion of the decrypted title data at a plurality of locations within the decrypted title data, with customer information data, so that the title data provided to a customer includes the watermark information.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

[0001] This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119(e)(1) toProvisional Application No. 60/194,452, filed Apr. 4, 2000, and U.S.Provisional Application No. 60/227,705, filed Aug. 24, 2000. Each ofthese applications are herein incorporated by reference in its entirety.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

[0002] 1. Field of the Invention

[0003] This application relates to a highly secure data delivery systemand method for distribution of title data, on demand, and a method andsystem for the encryption, storage, preview, selection, retrieval,watermarking, decryption and delivery to remote locations, of digitaltitle data stored at a central storage facility, and in particular,music recordings, movies, software, and the like.

[0004] 2. Description of the Related Art

[0005] The manufacturing and distribution of movies, music and softwarefor home enjoyment is quickly becoming one of the larger industries inthe world. For example, with the Internet (the “net”), there are nowcompanies that allow a user to order over the net and have shipped anyof music, video or software titles that the business-to-consumerretailer has in stock. A user can simply go to a website, provide thenecessary credit card information and shipping information, and theretailer will ship the requested titles to the user's home. However,shipment that is not at an increased fee can take on average two tothree days, and even longer if to a remote location. In addition, theseretailers do not always have every title that a user wishes to order, instock. Therefore, shipment can take longer. Alternatively, the customerwill have to pay additional shipping costs to get the title faster.

[0006] There are other retailers that also strive to offer customizedtitles to a customer. For example, there are retailers that offercustomized CDs to a customer through a web site, wherein a customer canaccess the company's website and request a customized CD with each titleor track that the user selects. Nevertheless, the user must still waiton average two to three days for a CD to be shipped to the user. Inaddition, there may be a delay in manufacturing the CD prior toshipment, which will push out the shipment time to the user. Further,the customer who wants the CD quicker will have to pay additionalshipping costs.

[0007] There also exists the more traditional industry of rental andsale of movies, CDs, software and the like at local retailestablishments such as, for example, a movie on videotape at a localvideo retailer. Today, the most popular medium for distributing suchmovies may still be VHS videotapes, however digital video disks (DVDs)are quickly becoming very popular. Of course, renting or purchasingthrough a local retailer requires at least one trip to the localretailer. In addition, there is the possibility that the desired titledwill not be in stock.

[0008] Yet another medium for distributing, for example, movies to ahome is through cable or satellite television networks, which currentlyprovide pay-per-view capabilities and some also offer video-on-demandservices. Nevertheless, direct video distribution to the home islimited, for example, by the availability of select and limited titlesat the predefined times. Pay-per-view services typically only offer alimited number of titles at the pre-defined times. Video on-demand istypically limited by the cable television provider's head endfacilities, its infrastructure and capacity to store a number of titles.To rent or buy a movie today can still be a frustrating experience for acustomer. For pay-per-view, the customer must rent the movie at theselect times its local cable company offers the movie. In addition,video-on-demand is not yet available to a majority of the population.Therefore, for the consumer, the experience of renting or buying a movieoften still requires that the customer visit a local video retailoutlet. However, making a trip to the local retail store does notguarantee that the consumer will even find the title that they desire,and the consumer may either end up renting or buying an alternativetitle or not renting or buying anything at all. This is due, forexample, to the limited space for stocking many titles within theconfines of the retail store. These stores can only stock a limitedsupply of titles for rental or purchase. In addition, the titles tend tobe the most popular titles, and therefore the consumer may not be ableto rent or purchase a particularly desired title if it is not a populartitle.

BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

[0009] All the aforementioned mechanisms for distributing titles to theconsumer suffer from any of inventory limitations, inconvenience and atime of distribution to the consumer. There is a need, therefore, forthe ability to deliver titles such as, movies, music, software anddigital titles, on-demand, with a virtually unlimited library of titles,on any desired medium, within an hour of a customer requesting thetitle. Accordingly, there is a need for a method and system ofdistributing digital information representing any of full-length,full-motion movies, music, software, and the like, from a storagefacility to a remote location for on-demand purchase or rental. Thisneed also exists for on-demand video distribution through cabletelevision head ends, and also exists for manufacturing of movie titles,music titles, and software titles on any desired medium for pick up ator delivery by local rental or retail outlets. There is also a need fora highly secure method and system for delivering such titles, whereinthere is very little chance that the title provided by such method andsystem could ever be inappropriately obtained. There is a further needto watermark the title data provided by the method and system withcustomer information that cannot be defeated or removed from the title,so as to deter copying of the title once rented or purchased. There isalso a need to be able to track the distribution of the titles foraccounting and copyright royalty compliance.

[0010] One embodiment of a system for selecting and providing title datato a customer, according to the invention, comprises a service bureaucoupled to a communications network. The service bureau captures aplurality of title data for a plurality of titles. The service bureauincludes an encryption device that encrypts the title data and providesthe encrypted title data and a decryption key to the communicationsnetwork. The system also includes an entry portal coupled to thecommunications network. The entry portal provides summary data of thetitle data to the customer, allows the customer to select and order theselected title data, and provides selection information data andcustomer information data to the communications network. The systemfurther includes a central storage facility coupled to thecommunications network. The central storage facility receives theencrypted title data and the decryption key, and catalogs and stores theencrypted title data and the decryption key. The central storagefacility upon receipt of the selection information data also providesthe encrypted title data and the decryption key to the communicationsnetwork. The system further comprises a delivery device coupled to thecommunications network. The delivery device receives the selectioninformation data and the customer information data, and requests theencrypted title data and the decryption key from the central storagefacility. The delivery device also includes a decryption device thatdecrypts the encrypted title data using the decryption key, and providesdecrypted selected title data to the communications network. The systemfurther comprises a watermarking device, that time/frequency modulatesat least a portion of the decrypted selected title data at a pluralityof locations within the decrypted selected title data, according to arandomly selected time/frequency modulation to numbers relationship, tothereby watermark the decrypted selected title data with the customerinformation data. The watermarking device provides the watermarked titledata as the selected title data to the customer.

[0011] A method of selecting title data and delivering selected titledata to a customer, according to the invention, comprises capturing aplurality of title data for a plurality of titles, encrypting theplurality of title data for the plurality of titles to provide aplurality of encrypted title data and a corresponding decryption key foreach encrypted title data, and cataloging and storing the plurality ofencrypted title data and each corresponding decryption key at a centralstorage facility. The method also comprises previewing summary data forthe plurality of title data with an entry portal coupled to acommunications network, selecting and ordering the selected title datathrough the entry portal, and providing selection information data andcustomer information data to the communications network. The methodfurther comprises, in response to receipt of the selection informationdata by the central storage facility, transmitting the encrypted titledata corresponding to the selected title data and the correspondingdecryption key with the communications network. In addition, the methodcomprises decrypting the encrypted title data with the decryption key toprovide decrypted selected title data. The method further compriseswatermarking the title data by time/frequency modulating at least aportion of the decrypted selected title data at a plurality oflocations, according to a randomly selected time/frequency modulation tonumber relationship, to watermark the decrypted selected title data withthe customer information data, and to provide watermarked title data.The method further comprises providing the watermarked title data to thecustomer as the delivered title data.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0012]FIG. 1 illustrates an embodiment of a system for providing titledata according to the invention;

[0013]FIG. 2 illustrates a functional block diagram of an embodiment ofa service bureau facility of the system of FIG. 1;

[0014]FIG. 3 illustrates a functional block diagram of a central storagefacility of the system of FIG. 1;

[0015]FIG. 4 illustrates an embodiment of a delivery device of thesystem of FIG. 1;

[0016]FIG. 5 illustrates an embodiment of a watermarking deviceaccording to the invention;

[0017]FIG. 6 illustrates an embodiment of a method of watermarking titledata according to the invention;

[0018]FIG. 7 illustrates an alternate embodiment of a method ofwatermarking title data according to the invention;

[0019]FIG. 8 illustrates a decoding device that can be used to decodewatermarked title data according to the invention;

[0020]FIG. 9 illustrates an embodiment of a method of the decodingwatermarked title data according to the invention;

[0021]FIG. 10 illustrates an alternate embodiment of a method ofdecoding watermarked title data according to the invention;

[0022]FIG. 11 illustrates a functional block diagram of an embodiment ofan entry portal of the system of FIG. 1; and

[0023]FIG. 12 illustrates an embodiment of a method of providing thetitle data according to the invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

[0024] In the following detailed description, reference is made to theaccompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and which show by way ofillustration a preferred embodiment in which the invention may bepracticed. This embodiment is described in sufficient detail to enableone skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to beunderstood that other embodiments may be used and that changes may bemade without departing from the spirit and scope of the illustratedembodiment of the invention. The following description is, therefore,not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the invention isdefined only by the appended claims.

[0025] By way of example, an embodiment of the invention will beillustrated in terms of a system for delivering title data, such as,full-length movie title data, audio title data, and software title datain multiple formats and on multiple media to a remote location or to acustomer. It is to be appreciated that the system for which anembodiment is illustrated may be used in a number of differentapplications which would be obvious to one of skill in the art.

System Overview

[0026] By way of example, a system for capturing, storing, encrypting,previewing, selecting, decrypting, watermarking and delivering titledata, such as, full-length movie title data is shown in FIG. 1. Thesystem 10 includes a service bureau 16, a central storage facility 12,an entry portal 14 and a delivery device 18. The central storagefacility in one embodiment can be located at a central location forserving a plurality of delivery devices over a wide geographic area.However, it is also to be appreciated that the central storage facilitymay comprise a plurality of such facilities that are mirrored and arelocated at a plurality of locations to service any geographic area. Itis also to be appreciated that the delivery device can be a plurality ofdelivery devices located at a plurality of locations such as, forexample, at a local retail store. Each of the service bureau, thecentral storage facility, the entry portal and the delivery device arecoupled together through a communications network which is preferably afiber optic network capable of delivering large volumes of data at ahigh speed. It is to be appreciated, however, that the communicationsnetwork can take other forms such as other land-wire type connectionsincluding a T1 line, a digital-subscriber line (DSL), an ISDN, asatellite communication system, a wireless communication system, otherknown communication mediums, and combinations thereof.

[0027] The system 10 of FIG. 1 can be used, for example, to deliveron-demand, full-length motion picture titles at a delivery device, whichcan be written onto a physical medium, such as a CD-R, a digital-videodisk (DVD), and purchased by a customer, preferably within an hour. Itis to be appreciated, however, that any title such as a music title, asoftware title, a game title, and the like can be provided by thisembodiment of the invention. It is also to be appreciated that the titlecan be provided on any medium such as a DVD, a CDOR, a mini-disk, aFlash RAM, a VHS tape, a Beta tape, a digital Beta tape, or any othermedium known to one of skill in the art. It is further to be appreciatedthat the title data need not be provided on a medium, but rather may beprovided, for example, over an on-demand network to a customer's homefor immediate enjoyment by the customer, or even over the communicationsnetwork for burning of a selected medium by the customer.

[0028] One advantage of this embodiment of the invention is that theplurality of delivery devices, which can exist, for example, in a retailvideo store should not run out of any movie that is available via thesystem, whether it be for a rental or for sale. Another advantage ofthis embodiment of the invention is that it allows each delivery devicesuch as a retail store to operate without having to maintain a largeinventory of title data. For example, the system of the invention allowsthe delivery device as will be discussed in detail infra, to keep, forexample, the top 100 DVD titles in a local cache at the delivery device,and to request any other titles data from the central storage facility.

[0029] Generally speaking, the system 10 illustrated in FIG. 1 permits aconsumer (not illustrated) to preview a title, to select a title, and toorder a title for rental or purchase with the entry portal 14, forreproduction, for example, with the delivery device 18, wherebyinformation necessary for the preview or reproduction of the title datais communicated in a highly secure manner over the communicationsnetwork 20. The title data is either stored locally at the deliverydevice in an encrypted and encoded format, or the title data is storedat the central storage facility 12 in the encrypted and encoded formatand is communicated to the delivery device over the communicationsnetwork in a highly secure fashion. As will be discussed in detailinfra, another advantage of this embodiment of the invention is that thesystem is highly secure and includes a plurality of security featuresthat prevent anyone who has not purchased a title or who does not havesufficient privileges, from breaking into the system and decrypting ordecoding the title data. As will also be discussed infra, the systemincludes a watermarking device and method of watermarking, thatwatermarks the title data, that is purchased or rented via the systemwith encrypted customer information data, and that cannot be defeatedwithout substantially destroying the title itself. Accordingly, anotheradvantage of the system and method of the invention is that any titlepurchased or rented through the system will be watermarked withencrypted customer data, which is a deterrent to the purchaser allowingillegal copies of the title data to be made.

[0030] This embodiment of the system 10 of the invention will also havethe capability of producing artwork for packaging of the title which iseither being sold or rented. For example, the artwork may be printedonto the media itself, onto packaging for the media, onto a label forthe media, or may be in the form of a bar code or in any other encodedformat, or any other packaging known to one of skill in the art. Theartwork can include, for example, customer or retailer identificationdata, graphics data, or any other identifying indicia known to those ofskill in the art. The artwork, like the title data itself, can be storedeither locally at the delivery device 18 or at the central storagefacility 12 and transmitted by the communications network 20 to thedelivery device. As will also be described in detail infra, thisembodiment of the invention can include an accounting system whichmonitors the distribution and manufacturing of all title data, for aproper accounting of royalty information to copyright holders, and forsecurity reasons to be discussed in detail infra.

The Communications Network

[0031] It is to be understood that anywhere in this specification wherethere is described transfer of data over the communications network 20,that such transfer of data is an authenticated transaction that includesa level of network authentication that can be attained, for example,using commercially available security products known to those of skillin the art. It is to be understood that each device that communicatesover the communications network includes an Authentication Interface(AI) 11, known to those of skill in the art. It is to be understood thatan authenticated transaction is one in which a requesting device ispositively identified by the device receiving the request, and whereinthe communications network is a secure communications network. It isalso to be understood that each such transaction over the communicationsnetwork is tied to a unique identifier, that can later be used to auditeach step in the authenticated transaction process.

[0032] It is to be appreciated that the communications network ispreferably a high band width communications network, particularlybetween the central storage facility 12 and the delivery device 18. Thecommunications network is preferably a high-speed Ethernet network, suchas a giga bit copper network. For example, the communications network ofthe invention preferably has the capacity to transfer a data stream at aspeed of up to 100 mb/sec. to transfer, for example, a MPEG-2 encrypted,compressed title data. Such a system can transfer a 1.5 GB compressedmovie title in less than 10 minutes. The servers for such a system wouldhave terabytes of storage to accommodate movie titles.

The Service Bureau

[0033] Referring to FIG. 2, there is illustrated a functional blockdiagram of one embodiment of the service bureau facility 16, whichcaptures the plurality of title data that is ultimately provided to thedelivery device. The title data includes, for example, analog title datathat is sampled and converted to digital title data, digital title dataand graphics data that may be, for example, scanned and converted todigital data. In particular, the title data may include audio data,full-length movie title data, software data and graphics data.

[0034] The service bureau 16 includes a plurality of media readingdevices 22 that capture the title data for the plurality of titles. Forexample, the plurality of media reading devices may include digitalsource readers such as a DVD reader 24, a CD-ROM reader 26, D1-D3readers 28, a digital video source reader 32, a digital Beta sourcereader 34, an audio CD reader 36, a CDR reader, and the like. The mediareading devices may also include analog reading devices such as, forexample, a tape player for audio, a VHS tape reader, an analog Beta tapereader 30, and a laser disk reader for movie titles. The service bureaumay also include an optical scanner 44 that, for example, scans artwork,or advertisement data, and the like, into the service bureau as digitaldata, for storage ultimately at the central storage facility 12. It isto be appreciated that the artwork or the advertisement data can also becreated, for example, by a user at an operator station 52 to bediscussed further infra, or provided over a wide area network 42 to bediscussed infra.

[0035] The service bureau may also include an audio mastering station 38that reads an analog audio signal and digitizes the analog signal at,for example, 44.1 Kbs and converts the analog audio signal into adigital audio data stream. The audio mastering station may also includemulti-speed readers. The audio mastering station can condition the audiodata into any selected format, such as, MP3, CD, and may also compressthe audio title data according to audio compression formats known tothose of skill in the art. The audio mastering station can also operateon digital audio title data received from the digital audio readers toformat the digital audio title data into a selected format and tocompress the digital audio title data. It is to be appreciated that theaudio mastering station may also include digital audio reading devicessuch as a CD reading device or a CDR reading device.

[0036] The service bureau 16 also captures full-length movie title datafrom a studio content provider 40. The studio content provider may beany content provider, such as, Universal Studios, MGM, Time-Warner, andthe like. In addition, the full-length movie title data may be providedin any number of formats including 16 mm file format, and reformattedfor home television such as in VHS format or DVD format. In oneembodiment of the service bureau, the service bureau may be coupled tothe studio content provider 40 via a wide-area network (WAN) 42, so thatthe service bureau can receive the movie title data from the studiocontent provider. In addition, the service bureau may be tied into asubscriber network through the WAN, that automatically provides updatedtitle data, such as, software title data.

[0037] The service bureau may also receive in addition to thefull-length movie title data, movie preview title data, and graphicstitle data such as movie labels, movie artwork and the like, which canbe in either digital or analog format. This additional data may also beprovided to the service bureau 16 by the WAN 42 or may be read by one ofthe plurality of media reading devices 22. The service bureau mayinclude, for example, an optical reader, such as, for example, anoptical scanner 44 that can be used to scan the artwork for the movie oraudio title data. If any of this additional material is in analogformat, it is converted to a digital format to be stored in the centralstorage facility 12 and to be associated with the full-length movietitle data. In particular, referring to FIG. 1, as will be discussed ingreater detail infra, the movie artwork can be transferred from thecentral storage facility along with the full-length movie title data tothe delivery device 18 for use in reproducing the movie artwork for thejackets or covers on the jewel case of, for example, a DVD. Also, aswill be discussed in greater detail infra, the preview information canbe previewed by a customer at the entry portal 14 as part of the processof viewing, selecting and ordering the full-length movie title data. Aswill be discussed in greater detail infra, a majority of the availablefull-length movie title data, preview title data, and artwork title datawill be stored in the central storage facility in a relational database.

[0038] Once captured, any of the movie title data, the graphics data,the audio title data and the advertisement data is provided by a localarea network (LAN) 46 to an encoding device 48, which may compressand/or encode the data into a selected format such as, for example, anMPEG-2 format for the full-length movie title data. It is to beappreciated that the title data can be encoded in any format such as,for example, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, JPEG, and the like, by the encoding device.A JPEG graphic compression may be used, for example, on the graphictitle data.

[0039] In one embodiment of the service bureau 16 and the system 10 ofthe invention, the full-length movie title data is demultiplexed intoseparate encoded audio and video title data files. As will be discussedin greater detail infra, demultiplexing the title data, such as MPEG-2formatted title data, into separate audio and video title data files, isa part of the security provided by the system 10 of the invention. Anadvantage of demultiplexing the title data at the service bureau is thatonly the secure database will know the relation between the plurality ofaudio data files and the video data files stored at the secure database,and therefore there is security provided by demultiplexing the movietitle data into separate audio and video title data files. Anotheradvantage of demultiplexing the title data at the service bureau is thatthe title data need only be demultiplexed into separate title data onceat the service bureau, as opposed to if the title data were to bedemultiplexed at, for example, the delivery device, then each time atitle is ordered, it would have to be demultiplexed at the deliverydevice. In addition, as will be discussed infra, each of the audio titledata and the video title data will be encrypted separately and providedwith its own separate decryption key. Accordingly, another advantage ofthe system of the invention is that the encryption provided, forexample, to a movie title is doubled, and therefore the security is atleast doubled.

[0040] In another embodiment of the service bureau 16 and the system 10of the invention, to be discussed infra, the title data can be broken upinto a plurality of fragments or chunks, which can be put back togetheronly if the relationships between the chunks are known, and theplurality of chunks can each be encrypted with each chunk having acorresponding decryption key. Accordingly, another advantage of thesystem of the invention is that the security can be further increased bydividing up the title data and encrypting the plurality of chunks oftitle data.

[0041] One embodiment of the encoding device is a power Mac-basedcompressor device such as the Minerva Compressionest. However, it is tobe appreciated that any number of encoding devices can be used, such as,for example, an Avid Symphony media composer, or a Pinnacle SonicSolutions. It is also to be appreciated that the encoding device can beany Mac, SEI, or PC-based device.

[0042] The title data such as the digital video and audio title data fora movie, if it is not already encoded, is encoded and compressed into,for example, an MPEG-2 format by the encoding device 48, which will havea corresponding decoding device 80, to be discussed in detail infra, inthe delivery device 18 (see FIG. 4). The encoding device will provide anencoded title data which can be any of an encoded video title data, anencoded audio title data, an encoded audio only title data, or anencoded digital title data file such as a software data file. Theencoded title data may be provided via the LAN 46 to an encryptiondevice 50.

[0043] The encryption device 50 receives the encoded title data or titledata that has not been encoded, and encrypts the title data using aNational Security Agency (NSA) grade encryption process. The encryptiondevice will encrypt the title data and provide at an output acorresponding encrypted title data and a corresponding decryption keyfor each encrypted title. It is to be appreciated that the decryptionkey will be preferably a 64-bit or higher decryption key provided by theNSA grade encryption process. It is also to be appreciated that in oneembodiment of the system 10 as discussed above, for a full-length motionvideo title, both the audio title data and the video title data will beencrypted and provided with their own corresponding decryption key.Similarly, audio only title data and the digital title data for othertitles will be encrypted and provided with a corresponding decryptionkey.

[0044] It is to be appreciated that in another embodiment of the system10 and the service bureau 16 the title data, such as, the video titledata, can be sliced up into a plurality of portions of the title,wherein each portion of the title is encrypted by the encryption deviceand is provided with its own corresponding decryption key. It is to beappreciated that for this embodiment, the slicing or dividing up of thetitle data need not be uniform or constant, and instead can be random.An analogy is be that the title is sliced up like a jigsaw puzzle oreven like a glass breaking, and therefore even if someone were able toobtain all of the pieces of the puzzle or pieces of the title, theywould still have to be able to put it together to reconstruct the title.It is to be understood that according to the invention, this is to beknown as “chunked” segments of the title. It is to be appreciated thatthis breaking up of the title into chunks provides an additional measureof security with the method and system of the invention. In particular,someone trying to obtain an illegal copy of the title even if they wereable to obtain all of the chunks of the title and even if they were ableto decrypt each chunk of the title, would still need to know theassociation between each segment of the title, or they would have tospend an inordinate amount of time piecing the title back together.Moreover, it is to be appreciated that this added security can befurther increased by randomly changing how the title is segmented orchunked, so that there can no predictive pattern as to how the title isdivided up. Accordingly, for this embodiment of the service bureau 16and the system 10 of the invention, it is to be appreciated that theencryption device and the service bureau will also provide in additionto the plurality of encrypted segments of the title and a correspondingdecryption key for each segment, a correlation map between each of theencrypted segments of the title that provides the information needed toreconstruct the title, and which may also include the correlationbetween the video portion of the title and the audio portion of thetitle if the title is a movie title.

[0045] For digital title data such as software data, that is to bewatermarked according to one embodiment of the invention to be discussedfurther infra, the encryption device 50 scans the digital title data anddetermines a plurality of locations where to insert information into thedigital title data. For example, within a header of the title data,between frames of the title data, and the like. The encryption devicethen inserts a plurality of placeholder tags into the title data at theplurality of locations where the title data is to be watermarked. Theencryption device then provides the title data with the insertedplaceholder tags and a correlation map that indicates where in the titledata the placeholder tags have been inserted, as an output of theencryption device to be stored at the central storage facility 12. Aswill be discussed in greater detail infra, the correlation map isprovided along with the title data and the decryption key by the centralstorage facility to the delivery device, and is used by the deliverydevice to insert the customer information data at the locations wherethe placeholder tags has been added, to provide watermarked decryptedselected title data.

[0046] The service bureau 16 may also include a PC-based operatorstation 52 that in one embodiment may, for example, be a WindowsNT-based station. The operator station may include a user interface thatallows a user to interface with the different devices of the servicebureau. For example, the operator station may be used as a controller tocontrol the various devices of the service bureau. The operator stationmay also include a low-resolution encryption device that formats andcompresses the preview title data into formatted, encoded preview titledata, that is to be provided to the consumer via the entry portal. Forexample, the low-resolution encryption device may encrypt the previewtitle data so that the preview title data can be viewed by the consumerover a Web-based user interface at the entry portal and to use, forexample, a Real Networks® player to preview the title data.

[0047] The operator station 52 may be used by the user, for example, toauthorize the type of encoding to be done by the encoding device 48.Consumers may want a title delivered in different formats, and theoperating station may allow a user at the service bureau to encode atitle in a number of formats. For example, the operator station may beused to authorize that a particular title be encoded in, for example,both an MPEG-1 and an MPEG-2 format. With communication infrastructureas is today, it may be desirable to provide the title data in an MPEG-1format so that it can be provided to the remote delivery device facility18 for delivery to the consumer quicker than it would take to providethe title data in an MPEG-2 format. Nevertheless, if at the time ofcapturing, encoding and encrypting the title data, the title data iscaptured in both MPEG-1 and in MPEG-2 formats, then once theinfrastructure improves, a consumer who has previously ordered andreceived the title in an MPEG-1 format, can request the title besupplied in an MPEG-2 format. With this embodiment of the system 10 ofthe invention, this could be done without the consumer having to againpurchase the title.

[0048] Once encoded and encrypted, each title data is transferred viathe communications network 20 to the central storage facility 12 forstorage at the storage facility. The corresponding decryption key ordecryption keys, such as, for the video and audio title data or for theplurality of chunks of the video title data, and the correlation map forthe chunks of title data or the correlation map for the placeholder tagswithin the digital title data, are also transferred via thecommunications network to the central storage facility for storage. Thegraphics data or other digital data, such as, artwork for the title, theadvertisement data and the like, is also transferred over thecommunications network to the central storage facility for storage. Inaddition, the preview title data is transferred over the communicationsnetwork to the central storage facility for storage.

The Central Storage Facility

[0049] At the central storage facility 12, the plurality of title datais stored and cataloged, along with any of the associated digital datafiles containing artwork, the preview title data, the correspondingdecryption key(s), and the correlation map. All of this data is storedin a relational database maintained by the central storage facility. Inaddition, a master data file index at the central storage facility iscontinually updated to reflect the availability of new title data files.As will be described in further detail infra, any of this data may beautomatically sent over the communications network to any deliverydevice 18 to update a local cache 68 at the delivery device, dependingon pre-selection criteria at the delivery devices, to be discussed indetail infra.

[0050] The central storage facility 12 is preferably located at acentral location to service a large geographic area or region. However,those skilled in the art will readily recognize that components of thecentral storage facility do not necessarily need to be located at thesame geographic location. In addition, those skilled in the art willreadily recognize that the service bureau 16 may be located at the samelocation as the central storage facility or it may be located at anotherconvenient location. For example, the service bureau may be locatedcloser to a major content provider such as, for example, in Hollywood,Calif. Further, those skilled in the art will readily recognize that thecentral storage facility may be one facility or may be comprised ofseveral mirrored facilities comprising substantially the same data andserving different geographical regions.

[0051]FIG. 3 illustrates a functional block diagram of the centralstorage facility 12. As was discussed above, the encoded and encryptedtitle data is provided to the central storage facility for storage bythe service bureau 16 over the communications network 20, along withassociated decryption key(s). In addition, the correlation map, thedigital data of e.g., graphics images, the advertisement data and thepreview title data are also provided to the central storage facility,for storage. The encoded, encrypted title data which may include, forexample, audio title data, both audio and video title data, and softwaretitle data is stored in a title database 54 of the central storagefacility. In one embodiment of the central storage facility and system10 of the invention, one copy of each title will be stored at thecentral storage facility. In addition, the formatted and compressedpreview title data may also be stored in the title database andassociated with the title data. In this embodiment of the centralstorage facility of the invention, a master file of the encoded,encrypted title data may be stored at the central storage facility forlater comparison with a watermarked copy of the title data, for ultimatedecoding of the watermarking of the watermarked title data, as will bediscussed in detail infra. As will also be discussed in detail infra,upon receipt of selection information data and customer information databy the central storage facility over the communications network 20, theencrypted title data and the corresponding decryption key will beprovided to a requesting delivery device 18 over the communicationsnetwork.

[0052] The central storage facility 12 may also include an advertisingdatabase 56 that stores a plurality of advertising content data. Theadvertising database will also provide ads to the delivery device 18 viathe communications network 20 along with the encrypted title data andthe corresponding decryption key. The advertisements may, for example,be selected based upon the customer information data received by thecentral storage facility. In particular, the advertising database mayselect targeted ads based on demographics information provided withinthe customer information data. In addition, the advertising data may betailored for specific consumers based upon customer information data.For example, the advertising database may select particularadvertisements to be provided to the delivery device based upon acustomer's prior history information, which may also be stored in thecentral storage facility in, for example, an accounting database 58, tobe discussed in greater detail infra. The central storage facility alsoincludes a key server database 60 that stores the plurality ofdecryption keys for the corresponding encrypted title data. As has beendiscussed above, the corresponding decryption key(s) are provided alongwith the encrypted title data to the delivery device when requested by adelivery device. In addition, the key server database can also store awatermarking key provided by the delivery device via the communicationsnetwork, when the delivery device watermarks a decrypted copy of theselected title data, to be discussed in greater detail infra. Thiswatermarking key can be used, for example, to determine the identity ofa customer who originally purchased suspected copied title data.Accordingly, as will be discussed in greater detail infra, if a piratedcopy or copies of a purchased medium is made, it can later be determinedwho was the purchaser of the original copy. Therefore, as will bediscussed in greater detail infra, an advantage of an embodiment of thesystem of the invention is that it includes an anti-piracy deterrent andthe key server database stores the corresponding watermarking keys todetermine the consumer identity or information.

[0053] The accounting database 58 may also be coupled to a transactiondevice 66, to provide a process for electronic transactions, such as,credit card approval of a customer's order. The accounting database 58is connected to the delivery device 18 and to the entry portal 14through the communications network 20. All accounting and transactioninformation may therefore be recorded by the accounting database. Theaccounting database and the transaction device may account for eachtransaction at the delivery device or at the entry portal including, forexample, revenue accounting, storing customer demographic information,computing royalties for each title ordered, and the like. The accountingdatabase can collect and maintain customer identification data (ID) anddemographic data for each customer which may include, for example, thename, address, telephone number, preferred contact procedure, majorcredit card numbers, a historical use profile, product preferences,types, frequency of ordering, and the like. An advantage of storing allthe customer information at the central storage facility in theaccounting database is that it allows customers the freedom to accessthe system from any entry portal 14, such as, in their own home, orco-located with a corresponding delivery device at, for example, a localretail establishment. In particular, the customer would only need toprovide the information once and thereafter can access the system viaany entry portal to, for example, rent or purchase full-length movietitle data.

[0054] Upon authorizing a purchase or transaction, the accountingdatabase 58 and transaction device 66 can issue an approval via aproprietary protocol for transaction authentication to the centralstorage facility 12, which can control the transfer to the deliverydevice of the encrypted title data, the corresponding decryption key(s),the advertising content data, and if, for example, the title data hasbeen divided up into chunks or is software title data, the correlationmap of the correlation between the chunks or the location of placeholdertags within the title data. The accounting database and transactiondevice may also provide for automatic payment of the royalties to thecontent provider over the communications network 20. In addition, theaccounting database and transaction engine can update its own recordsfor each transaction. The accounting database and transaction device mayalso, for example, bill the delivery device if the delivery device islocated at a partner retail outlet. It is also to be appreciated thatthe accounting database 58 and transaction device 66 may also do any ofthe following: electronic funds transfer between any of a retail outletcontaining a delivery device or a content provider, daily balancing ofaccounts, providing or determining pricing, providing account summariesor reports, monitoring product return and rental transaction closureincluding updating the customer financial information for all final orlate charges, and the like.

[0055] The central storage facility 12 may also include a status managerdevice 62 that monitors a status of any transaction, as well as thestatus of the database. For example, the status manager device may beused by personnel (not illustrated) responsible for maintaining thedatabase through, for example, a user interface (UI) 64 to start, stopor pause any transaction occurring, to perform general maintenance ofthe database, to control the order in which title data is provided tothe communications network to fulfill an order, or for general statusmonitoring.

Delivery Device

[0056] Referring to FIG. 4, an embodiment of the delivery device 18 willnow be described. The encrypted title data of the plurality of titlesmay be stored in a local cache 68 of the delivery device, or theencrypted title data may be transmitted by the central storage facility12 to the delivery device over the communications network 20. Thedelivery device may include a server 70, which processes requests ororders for the title data received from the entry portals 14 over thecommunications network, and which locates the encrypted title dataregardless of its location, i.e. whether the encrypted title dataresides in the local cache or resides at the central storage facility.It is to be appreciated that the local cache can reside either in thedelivery device or, for example, within the server, and that variationsobvious to one of skill in the art are intended to be within the scopeof the invention. The delivery device may also include a control process72, which, for example, can be attached to the server, and which can beused to, for example, access and/or manipulate information in theaccounting database, to control manufacture of the title data by thedelivery device including an order of manufacture of the title data, andthe like. The control process can, for example, include a local queueand status manager process 74 to accomplish the above. It is to beappreciated that although the control process is illustrated as residingwithin the delivery device, because the components of the system are alltied together, the process can reside anywhere within the system.

[0057] It is to be appreciated that the local queue and status managercan include a user interface allowing an employee at the delivery deviceor an employee of a local retail outlet partner housing the deliverydevice, to monitor and control the burning process. For example, anemployee with appropriate privileges can through the user interface,control an order in which the decrypted selected title data are burnedon selected media. For example, if it is apparent that an order needs tobe filled quickly and that other orders can be delayed, an employee withappropriate privileges can modify the order to burn the urgent orderfirst. Nevertheless, it is to be appreciated that with the security ofthe system and methodology of the invention, any employee will not everhave access to the decrypted selected title data or the decryption keyso that no danger exists of any employee being able to steal orduplicate the title data.

[0058] The local cache 68 preferably allows for a small cache of, forexample, the most demanded or ordered title files, to be maintained atthe delivery device and managed by any of the local cache, the controlprocess 72 or the server 70. In particular, the local cache can bemanaged according to selected criteria to, for example, hold the top 100movies consistently ordered such that a majority of all movies providedby the delivery device come from the local cache, without having to besent over the communications network from the central storage facility.Accordingly, it is to be appreciated that the controller may includestatistical data and statistical methodology for determining the mostfrequently requested movies and new releases, such that the local cachecan be utilized at its highest rate and so that only a minority of thetitle data need be provided from the central storage facility. Inaddition, the controller may, for example, keep statistics of localconsumer tastes of most frequently requested titles, or may beconfigured to ensure that certain title data are never purged from thelocal cache, or may be configured to contain certain title data for acertain time period. Other variations to one of skill in the art suchthat the local cache can be utilized at its highest rate and thecommunications network can be utilized at a minimum, are intended to bewithin the scope of the invention.

[0059] It is also to be appreciated that the control process 72including the local queue and status manager process 74 can, forexample, update the accounting database at the central storage facilitywith, for example, royalty data. For example, as will be discussed ingreater detail infra, upon burning of a desired medium or providing thetitle data to a consumer, the local queue and status manager may updatethe central database with the royalty information, and with the serialnumber associated with the title data indicating that this particularserial number has now been sold or rented.

[0060] The control process 72 including the local queue and statusmanager process 74 may use, for example, any of a number of processes tocontrol the content stored in the local cache 68. A first such process,for example, is a cache-by-demand process, wherein least used titlesfall off the end of the cache as new titles are added to the cache. Thisprocess may also include a step of moving a title ahead, or “freshening”in queue, in the order of the queue to regain its maximum duration placein the cache, once a title is requested and provided to a consumer.

[0061] Another process for managing the cache is a cache-by-predictiveschedule process, wherein a manager or user of the system (or anheuristic predictive process) with certain privileges can specify,through the control process interface 72, selected criteria to cache theinformation by predictive schedule so that, for example, children'smovies are cached in the local cache during a certain time of a day orfor certain days or periods of a year, and so that, for example, adultfilms are cached in the local cache at other times within the day orcertain days or periods within a year. The cache-by-predictive scheduleprocess may also include a step of specifying the selected criteria toensure that certain title data is always in the cache, even if it mightotherwise be removed according to the cache-by-demand process. Theheuristic predictive process can use a database of known patterns ofpurchase to stock the cache with no human interaction needed.

[0062] Still another process for managing the cache is a cache-by-realtime-prediction process, wherein, for example, the status manager 62 atthe central storage facility 12 in cooperation with the control process72 within each delivery device 18, can capture a real time picture ofthe local cache at each delivery device, can track the plurality oflocal caches over time, and can, for example, on a regional basis,determine regional and/or local trends and preferences. The system can,for example, apply statistical analysis and predictive modeling, and canprovide the title data to cache certain titles at the local cache ofsome of the plurality of delivery devices, based on these statisticalpatterns and modeling. The process may also include an auto-tune stepwhereby the cache can be auto tuned to account, for example, forconnection speed, available space, and the like to make a best decisionfor storing content in a local cache. This best decision may includeadded intelligence within the status manager device 62 within thecentral storage facility that can learn, and improve over time, tomanage the dynamics of the system and the plurality of local cacheswithin corresponding delivery devices.

[0063] Referring again to FIG. 4, an embodiment of the delivery device18 and a method of delivery title data will now be illustrated. As willbe discussed in greater detail infra, once a customer decides topurchase or rent a title, the customer initiates a credit card securetransaction with the entry portal 14. The secure credit card transactiongenerates a unique customer identification (ID) data that will be aunique marker for each transaction. The customer ID data and thecustomer selection information data, which is information about whichtitle data the customer has selected, is provided to the delivery device18 via the communications network 20. The delivery device receives thecustomer ID data and the selection information data, and the local queueand status manager 74 of the control process 72, searches for theencrypted title. If the encrypted title is stored within the local cache68, then it need not be requested from the central storage facility 12,and the decryption key is requested from the central storage facility.Otherwise, both the decryption key and the encrypted title are requestedfrom the central storage facility.

[0064] It is important to note that the only time that a decryption keywill be provided to the remote delivery device by the central storagefacility, is when the credit card secure transaction has been approved,and the decryption and, if selected, the burning of the title is readyto begin. In particular, this embodiment of the system 10 ensures thatthe decryption key is provided only after the secure credit cardtransaction has occurred and is validated, and that the system providesthe decryption key, and if necessary the encrypted title, so that thetitle can be decrypted on the fly and, if requested, a medium can beburned with the title, without the delivery device ever retaining thedecryption key and preferably without the delivery device storing theunencrypted title data.

[0065] Therefore, it is to be appreciated that additional security isprovided by the method and system of the invention, since neither thedecryption key nor the unencrypted title are stored at the deliverydevice, and therefore can never be stolen or copied. It is also to beappreciated that the system 10 and method of the invention preferablymanufacture the medium or deliver the encrypted title data anddecryption key to the delivery device as close to the requested deliverytime as possible, to provide the added security as well as to ensurethat other jobs can be done first, if the title data has not beenimmediately requested by a consumer.

[0066] Upon receipt of the decryption key and the encrypted title data,the delivery device provides the encrypted title data and the decryptionkey to a decryption device 78, for decrypting the encrypted title data.As has been discussed above, the encrypted title data and the decryptionkey can include: for example, encrypted video title data and encryptedaudio title data and the corresponding decryption keys for each of theencrypted video title data and the encrypted audio title data; encryptedaudio title data such as, for example, a CD or collection of music titledata and its corresponding decryption key(s); and encrypted softwaretitle data and its corresponding decryption key.

[0067] It is to be appreciated that in one embodiment of the system ofthe invention where the title data is movie data, the decryption keyincludes a corresponding decryption key for each of the video title dataand the audio title data. It is to be appreciated that in anotherembodiment of the system of the invention, the decryption key for thevideo title data includes a corresponding decryption key for eachsegment or chunk of the video title, and that the correlation map forpiecing back together the decrypted video title data is also provided bythe central storage facility on a second, secure logical channel. It isfurther to be appreciated that this information is never written todisk, is ultra-volatile and has significant authentication requirements.It is also to be appreciated that for the software title data, thecorrelation map of the places where the placeholder tags have beeninserted into the title data are also provided with the decryption key.The decryption device decrypts the encrypted title data including thechunks of title data, using the decryption key(s) and pieces backtogether the title data using the correlation map, to provide decryptedselected title data at its output. Alternatively, the decryption devicepieces back together the encoded title data chunks and then decrypts thepieced back together encrypted title. For the case where the encryptedtitle data includes both encrypted video title data and encrypted audiotitle data, the decryption device will provide at its output bothdecrypted selected video title data and decrypted selected audio titledata.

[0068] The delivery device 18 also includes a decoding device 80 thatreceives the decrypted selected title data and that may decode thedecrypted selected title data. For example, as will be discussed ingreater detail infra, the system and method of the invention includes awatermarking device 82 (see FIG. 5) and method for injecting thecustomer ID data into the decrypted title data and, if requested, onto aburned medium. In one embodiment of the watermarking device and methodfor watermarking, audio title data is operated on by the watermarkingdevice to insert the customer ID data into the audio title data. Forthis embodiment, at least a portion of the decrypted selected audiotitle data may be decoded, for example, from an MPEG-2 format into adecoded format so that it can be provided to the watermarking device.Accordingly, the decoding device receives at least a portion of thedecrypted selected audio title data, for example, where only a portionof the audio title data is to be watermarked or only portions of thedecrypted selected audio title data are to be watermarked, so that theentire soundtrack need not be decoded, and decodes the portion(s) of thedecrypted selected audio title data to provide at least a portion ofdecoded, decrypted selected audio title data to the watermarking device.

[0069] As will be discussed in greater detail infra, the watermarkingdevice 82 receives the at least the portion of the decoded, decryptedselected audio title data, or at least a portion of audio title that hasbeen decrypted, such as, CD-formatted audio data, and inserts or injectsthe customer ID data into the at least the portion of the decryptedselected audio title data to provide a watermarked portion of thedecrypted selected audio title data. It is to be appreciated that withthis watermarking device and method, an advantage of this embodiment ofthe method and system of the invention is that there is providedincreased security including a unique anti-piracy deterrent that can becombined with the architecture of the system to provide a highly secure,on-demand system and method for delivering title data. Accordingly, itis to be appreciated that, for example, content providers will receive avalue-added anti-piracy protection that can, for example, be used withexisting anti-piracy measures to provide added security and anti-piracydeterrents.

[0070] The delivery device 18 also includes an encoding device 84, thatreceives at least the watermarked portion of the decrypted selectedaudio title data and that encodes the watermarked portion of thedecrypted selected audio title data into the format that it was decodedfrom by the decoding device 80, e.g., MPEG-2 format. In addition, thedecoding device combines the encoded portion of the watermarkeddecrypted selected audio title data with the remainder of the decryptedselected audio title data, to provide a complete watermarked decryptedselected audio title data.

[0071] For the case where the title data originally included bothencrypted video title data and encrypted audio title data, the deliverydevice may also combine the watermarked decrypted selected audio titledata with the decrypted selected video title data to provide a compositedecrypted selected title data. In contrast, if the title data wasoriginally audio only title data, then this step of combining the audiotitle data and the video title data need not be done.

[0072] It is also to be appreciated that if the title data is digitaldata and does not include audio title data, such as a software title,the title data can bypass both the decoding device 80 and the encodingdevice 84. In particular, as will be discussed in greater detail infra,where the title data is software title data, the software title data isdecrypted with its corresponding decryption key by decryption device 78,and is provided to the watermarking device 82, to be watermarkedaccording to another method of watermarking according to the invention.In particular, as will be discussed in greater detail infra, with thisembodiment of the watermarking method of the invention, the watermarkingdevice will receive the correlation map of locations in the softwaretitle data that the placeholder tags have been inserted, and will insertinto each or some of the placeholder tag locations the customer ID data,to provide a watermarked software title data.

[0073] The delivery device 18 also includes an advertisement (Ad)insertion device 86 that either receives advertisement content data overthe communications network 20 from the central storage facility 12and/or selects advertisement content data from the local cache 68, andinserts the advertisement content data into the decrypted selected titledata. In particular, the title data prior to being written to a selectedmedium or provided to the consumer, for example, over an on-demandnetwork (not illustrated) may be merged with advertisement data, whereinthe ads are selected by the system based on the customer's identity or,for example, other decision criteria for providing marketing and adinformation. For example, the ad may be selected to be appropriate forthe particular title, e.g., music, video, or software, to match thedemographics of the customer as will be discussed in further detailinfra, and/or tailored to the customer's prior purchasing patterns. Forexample, a marketing driven process can be stored and provided by thestatus manager device 62 at the central storage facility 12, and can beused to determine which ads get provided to the delivery device 18.Moreover, as will be discussed in further detail infra, the customer canbe solicited as part of the ordering process, for further informationfrom the customer, such as, which advertisements the customer wouldprefer, the customer's preferences, and the like. Still further, thesystem 10 via any of the status manager 62, the ad insertion device 86,the local status manager 74, can review and determine which ads havebeen provided to the particular customer in the past, and use thisinformation to tailor future ad insertion into the selected title data.The ad insertion device then provides at its output the decryptedselected title data.

[0074] It is to be appreciated that the decrypted selected title datacan be provided to the consumer in a plurality of different forms. Forexample, the delivery device might feed an on-demand network (notillustrated), wherein a customer can order the title data through theentry portal as will be discussed in further detail infra, and thedecrypted selected title data can be provided to the user over theon-demand network. Alternatively, the decrypted selected title data canbe provided to the consumer over the communications network 20 to bereceived by the consumer, for example, via the entry portal 14, so thatthe consumer can either enjoy the title data at the entry portal or, forexample, burn a selected medium with a state-of-the-art burnerinterfaced to the entry portal. Still further, the delivery device canburn a medium selected by the customer with a burning device 90 at thedelivery device, so that the customer can any of pick up the burnedmedium at a local retail outlet, have the burned medium delivered to theconsumer via, for example, an overnight delivery service, or have themedium delivered with other goods or services such as, for example, apizza where the delivery device is located within a local pizza store.

[0075] Where the consumer may elect to have the decrypted selected titledata burned at the delivery device, the delivery device includes aburning device 90 and a printing device 88. The burning device can beany burning device known to one of skill in the art, such as a CDburning device, a CD-ROM burner, a DVD burner, and any other burningdevice that takes a digital data file and writes it to a selectedmedium. In addition, it is to be appreciated that the burning device canalso be any analog burning device, that takes analog data and writes itto an analog medium such as a VHS tape recording device, and the like.It is to be appreciated that if an analog medium is selected, thedigital data will be converted from digital format to analog format witha digital to analog converter (not illustrated) as readily known tothose of skill in the art. As will be discussed in further detail infra,any of a content provider, a customer ordering a title through the entryportal, and/or a partner maintaining the delivery device, can choose toinsert personalized content data either, for example, on the selectedmedium itself, on a label to be placed on the selected medium, or on asleeve to be packaged with the burned medium, and the like. The printingdevice 88 receives the personalization data that is provided, forexample, either from the local cache 68 or over the communicationsnetwork 20 from the central storage facility 12, or from the entryportal 14 as will be discussed in further detail infra, and prints anyof the burned medium, the label, and the packaging for the medium withany of, for example, graphics data, vendor identification data, customerinformation, a bar code, and the like. For example, the content providermay provide cover art to be burned on the sleeve with the title data,and the cover art may be stored in the central storage facility alongwith the encrypted title data and the decryption key, and when the titleis ordered, the graphics data, the encrypted title data and thedecryption key can be sent over the communications network to thedelivery device for decrypting, watermarking, printing and burning.

[0076] It is to be appreciated that modifications to the burning deviceknown to one of skill in the art are intended to be within the scope ofthe method and system 10 of the invention. For example, each burningdevice 90 may include a buffer that buffers the decrypted selected titledata of a next title to be burned by the burning device, while theburning device burns a current title on a selected medium. Accordingly,it is to be appreciated that in one embodiment of the delivery device 18and system of the invention, while the burning device is burning acurrent title on a selected medium, that the decryption device 78 andthe watermarking device 82 can be operating simultaneously to decryptand watermark the next title data, before it is provided to the burningdevice and buffered by the burning device. Further, it is to beappreciated that the delivery device can include more than onedecryption device, watermarking device, burning device and printingdevice so that these devices can operate in parallel to provide aplurality of title data on a plurality of selected media, or to theconsumer through an on-demand network or at the entry portal.

[0077] It is to be appreciated that in one embodiment of the method andsystem 10 of the invention, it is preferable to retain neither thedecryption key nor the decrypted selected title data after the mediumhas been burned, or after the decrypted selected title data has beenprovided to the consumer. In particular, it is to be appreciated thatthe decryption, ad insertion, watermarking, and burning are done on thefly as close to the desired delivery time of the consumer as possible,so that there is no need to store the decryption key or the decryptedselected title data at the delivery device 18. An advantage of thisembodiment is that it provides increased security, because the decryptedselected title data is never retained or stored at the delivery deviceand therefore cannot be copied or stolen. This security is in additionto the added security already provided by the watermarking of thedecrypted selected title data, as will be discussed in further detailinfra, and the splitting up and encrypting of the title data.

[0078] Once the desired medium has been burned or the title dataprovided to the consumer, the original encrypted title data is eitherretained by the local cache 68 to be stored and handled according to thecriteria discussed above, or retained by the central storage facility12. It is to be appreciated that once the decrypted selected title datahas been burned onto the desired medium or provided to the consumer, thecentral storage facility accounting database 58 is updated with atransaction ID, such as, a serial number and the customer ID number toassociate a particular transaction for a particular title with aparticular customer. Each such transaction will have a uniqueidentifier. This information is provided from the delivery device to thecentral storage facility over the secure communications network 20. Itis to be appreciated that the transaction ID refers to the watermark andother specifics of the transaction, but that the context of the key isarbitrary and unrelated to any watermark data or customer information.The watermark key is therefore meaningless out of context.

[0079] The delivery device 18 can also include a robot device 92 thatpicks the burned media such as, for example, a DVD from a spindle in,for example, batches and sorts the burned media, packages the burnedmedia with the printed sleeve art and seals within an appropriate casesuch as, for example, a jewel case, as known to those of skill in theart. Alternatively, it is to be appreciated that the delivery deviceneed not include such a robotic device, and that packaging and deliverycan be done, for example, by personnel at the delivery device or at thelocal retail partner housing the delivery device.

Watermarking Device

[0080] The system and method of the invention include a unique methodand watermarking device 82 for providing anti-piracy protection, knownto those in the art as electronic watermarking. Referring to FIG. 5, anembodiment of a watermarking method 94 to be discussed infra and thewatermarking device 82 can be used to protect any of, for example, audiotitle data, video title data, and software title data by embeddinginformation into the title data. As has been discussed above, the titledata can be provided on a selected medium or can be broadcast, forexample, over an on-demand service or network, or can be provided to thecustomer over the communications network 20 as, for example, an Internetdownload or streaming data. It is to be understood that with thewatermarking device and method of the invention, the watermarking is tothe data itself and therefore applies to any of the above mediums ofdelivery of the title data. It is also to be understood that thiswatermarking methodology and the watermarking device provide a form ofanti-piracy protection that is to be distinguished from other forms ofanti-copy protection known to those of skill in the art, and is intendedto be a complement to such forms of anti-copy protection.

[0081] It is to be appreciated that the watermarking device 82 and thewatermarking method 94 of this embodiment of the invention can also beused with existing delivery process chains in, for example, the softwareand movie industries, can be used with existing distribution anddelivery chains, for software, music, and movie title data and can beused by content providers, industry organizations seeking improvedanti-piracy solutions, or individual companies within the industry. Itis also to be appreciated that the watermarking device and method of theinvention is preferably used in the system 10 of the invention, and thatthe watermarking device and method of the invention allows title ownersto register and track each purchased or rented title, since thewatermarking cannot be defeated without great difficulty. In particular,a watermarked title according to the invention allows title owners totrack each duplicate of an original title that is made.

[0082] The watermarking device 82 and method 94 of the invention can beused for motion picture titles, audio CDs, compressed music files suchas in MP-3 format, computer software titles including, for example,business applications, computer games, operating systems, and the like.Preferably, the customer will be warned of the presence of the watermarkon, for example, the burned medium and/or on the sleeve of a burnedmedium and/or by a warning in the actual purchased title data whenviewed. This warning will create a clear deterrent to the consumer whoknows that the consumer's own information travels with any subsequentand unauthorized copy made of the media or title data. For example, thisinformation can be retrieved from any subsequent copy of the title datawhen processed through a decoding device 98 (see FIG. 8), to bediscussed in detail infra, thereby allowing legal authorities and/orauthorized users of the decoding device to trace the origin of theillegal copy back to the original purchaser, and to potentiallyprosecute the original purchaser and/or other parties for, for example,copyright infringement. Accordingly, it is to be appreciated thatcontent providers receive a value-added anti-piracy protection,complementing both existing and developmental anti-piracy measures.

[0083] Referring to FIG. 5, it is to be appreciated that thewatermarking device 82 and method 94 of the invention can be any ofhardware, software, and a combination of both software and hardware. Inparticular, one embodiment of the watermarking method provided by thewatermarking device will preferably be C++ code that resides within aWindows NT, Pentium III, 500 MHz or above platform. The watermarkingdevice may include, for example, a direct X plug-in that can communicatewith off-the-shelf high quality PC audio cards, that typically include adigital signal processor 96, through, for example, known and availableaudio software editors 97.

[0084] As has been discussed above, the watermarking device willpreferably be located at the delivery device 18 (see FIG. 4) orresident, for example, at the head end in a store and forward type ofon-demand delivery network (not illustrated). An input to thewatermarking device will be the title data to be watermarked and thecustomer ID information which shall be provided as a secure networktransfer over the communications network 20. However, it is to beappreciated that the input source could also be other variations knownto one of skill in the art such as, for example, from an operator at aWindows-based user interface on, for example, the local queue and statusmanager device 74 of the delivery device 18, that allows the ID code ofa user to be manually entered into the system.

[0085] According to a first embodiment 110 of the watermarking method 94of the invention, the method of watermarking is used for any title datacontaining audio title data such as, for example, motion picture titledata and audio title data. A second embodiment 146 of the method 94 ofwatermarking the title data is used for any title data that does notcontain audio title data such as, for example, software title data andother digital data files. It is to be appreciated that each of thesemethods embeds customer identification information into the title data.

Watermarking Method

[0086] Referring to FIG. 6, there is illustrated a first embodiment 110of the method 94 for watermarking the audio title data. As has beendiscussed above, it may be preferable to watermark only a portion of theaudio title data so that the entire audio title does not have to bewatermarked. Accordingly, a step 112 may be selecting a portion of theaudio title data to be watermarked. Before the customer ID informationcan be inserted into the portion of the title data as a watermark, thetitle data waveform is scanned Step 114 to determine available placementlocations within the audio title data, by a waveform scanner 136 withinthe watermarking device (see FIG. 5). In particular, the watermarkingdevice can include a quality parameters table 138 (see FIG. 5) includingmaximum limits on a frequency deviation that are allowed between, forexample, channels of an audio title or within the audio title data fileto be watermarked. It is to be appreciated that although the steps ofselecting a portion of the audio title data and scanning the audio titlewaveform have been illustrated as occurring within the watermarkingdevice 82, these steps can also be accomplished elsewhere in the system10 of the invention. For example, the steps of selecting a portion ofthe audio title data and scanning that portion of the audio title dataare preferably accomplished with a waveform scanner 136 and a qualityparameters table 138 located within the service bureau 16 of the system,so that the portion of the audio title data need only be scanned at thetime of capturing the title data and not each and every time that theaudio title data is provided to the delivery device 18. In particular,in this embodiment of the system 10, the correlation table discussedabove, which is also provided by the service bureau 16 to the centralstorage facility 12 for association and storage with the encrypted audiotitle data and the decryption key, can include a mapping of theplurality of locations in the audio title data where it can bewatermarked. The correlation table will be provided by the centralstorage facility along with the encrypted audio title data and thedecryption key to the delivery device 18.

[0087] As has been discussed above in connection with the deliverydevice 18, the delivery device includes a decoding device 80 that may beneeded, for example, to decompress the audio file where the audio fileis in, for example, an MPEG-2 format for a movie title. Accordingly,step 116 of the watermarking method includes decoding at least a portionof the audio title data. However, it is to be appreciated that the audiotitle data need not always be decoded, where, for example, the audiotitle data is in CD format. Once a plurality of placement locations forwatermarking the audio title data have been determined in step 114, anext step 118 includes with a random generator 140 within thewatermarking device 82, randomly selecting one of a plurality n encodingrelationships, wherein each encoding relationship of the n encodingrelationships includes information indicating where in the plurality ofplacement locations the watermark will be inserted (step 120), and alsoincludes selecting a binary numerical relationship to a frequency ofmodulation (step 122) that will be applied to the audio title data ateach of the selected placement locations. Accordingly, the watermarkingdevice 82 (see FIG. 5) also includes a table 142 containing theplurality n of encoding relationships. It is to be appreciated that ncan be any number, and is preferably a finite number. Thus the step 118includes the step 120 of randomly selecting from the plurality ofplacement locations, the plurality of locations to watermark the audiotitle data and the step 122 of randomly selecting the binary number tofrequency relationship from the plurality of binary number to frequencyrelationships.

[0088] It is to be appreciated that with the decoding device 98 anddecoding method 100 of the invention, to be discussed infra, there are aplurality of reference waveforms that can be created and used to decodethe watermarked audio title data into the customer ID number. Forexample, a first reference waveform can be an archived master title datafile that is stored without alteration, for example, at the centralstorage facility 12, and which is to be compared with the watermarkedcopy of the audio title data or with one or more channels of thewatermarked copy of the audio title data. Alternatively, for asoundtrack of audio title data that contains two or more individualchannels such as, for example, a stereo music file, a common channelsuch as, for example, a left channel, can be selected as the referencewaveform, whereby the left channel remains unaltered by the watermarkingprocess and the right channel is frequency altered by the watermarkingprocess. Accordingly, another step of this embodiment of the method ofwatermarking is a step of selecting the reference waveform which can beany of, for example, a master copy of the audio title data, or a channelof the audio title data. It is to be appreciated that although the stepof selecting the reference waveform has been illustrated with respect toa stereo audio track, that variations to one of skill in the art areintended to be within the scope of the invention. For example, any audiotitle data with two or more tracks can be used, including a monosoundtrack, since a mono soundtrack has two channels of audio. It is tobe appreciated that the reference channel or the master audio file isstored, for example, in the central storage facility and is used todecode the watermarked audio title data.

[0089] A next step 125 in this embodiment of the watermarking method 94is generating a watermarking key that is also to be stored in thecentral storage facility. The watermarking key is a combination of therandomly selected binary number to modulation frequency relationship andthe customer ID information. The watermarking key can then be used bythe decoding device 98 and decoding method 100 to be described in detailinfra, to decode the watermarked title data to determine the customer IDinformation. A next step 126 in this embodiment of the method ofwatermarking includes modulating with a waveform modulator 144, which ispreferably the digital signal processor 96 in combination with thesoftware editor 97 within the watermarking device 82, the audio titledata waveform with a frequency modulation at the plurality of randomlyselected placement locations and according to the randomly selectedbinary number to modulation frequency relationship, to encode thecustomer ID data into the audio title data to provide a watermarkedaudio title. In particular, the audio title is watermarked with thecustomer information data provided by the system, wherein the randomlyselected binary number frequency relationship is used to modulate theaudio title data to insert the customer information data into the audiotitle data at the randomly selected placement locations. It is to beappreciated that with this embodiment of the watermarking method andwatermarking device 82 (see FIG. 5), no two watermarked audio title datafiles will contain the same customer ID, and thus each watermarked copyof an audio title data file will be unique and can be individuallytraced back to a customer.

[0090] Another step in this embodiment 110 of the watermarking method 94includes track-hopping, wherein the watermarking device 82 randomlychanges between the reference channel and the watermarked channel of theaudio title data file. It is to be appreciated that the track-hoppingstep can be used with this embodiment where one of the audio channels isselected as the reference waveform and another channel of the audiotitle data is to be watermarked. An advantage of including thetrack-hopping step in this embodiment of the method and device, is thatit makes it even harder to defeat the watermarking since a user cannotsimply remove one track of the audio title data from the audio title andeliminate the watermarking. A next step 130 in this embodiment of thewatermarking method includes storing the reference waveform or mastertitle data in the central storage facility, and also storing 132 thewatermarking key of the central storage facility. In addition, as hasbeen discussed above, for the instance where only a portion of the audiotitle data has been watermarked, another step 134 in this embodiment ofthe watermarking method includes combining the portion of thewatermarked audio title data with the remainder of the audio title datato provide the watermarked audio title data. Further, where the audiotitle data is to be combined with video title data such as, for example,for a movie title, another step 135 includes combining the watermarkedaudio title data with the video title data to provide a compositewatermarked selected title data.

[0091] It is to be appreciated that an advantage of this embodiment ofthe method 110 of watermarking is that it remains intact throughnumerous media transformations such as, for example, signal compression,broadcast and Internet transmissions, digital-to-analog conversion,radio, television, cable or satellite broadcasts, and the like. It isalso to be appreciated that this embodiment 110 of the method ofwatermarking can be used with conventional two-channel audio, or withany number of matrix audio and/or digital surround sound encoded audiotracks. It is further to be appreciated that the quality parameterstable 138 within the watermarking device 82, is provided with frequencydeviation limits that ensure that the frequency modulation will not bediscernible to the human ear. In addition, it is to be appreciated thatwith this embodiment of the method of watermarking, particularly whereonly a portion of the audio title data is selected to be watermarked,there is little likelihood that the audio title data will be distortedenough to hear or distorted enough to cause the video and the audio in,for example, a movie title, to become desynchronized over the length ofthe movie title. It is further to be appreciated that an advantage ofthis embodiment of the method 110 of watermarking is that it is veryhard to defeat, and it would take a very extensive effort to do so.

[0092] Referring now to FIG. 7, there is illustrated a second embodiment146 of the method 94 of watermarking, according to the invention. Thisembodiment can be used for non-audio title data such as, for example,software title data. After the title data has been acquired from acontent provider, a first step 148 includes scanning the title data todetermine where in the title data information can be put into the title.This step 148 includes a step 150, which is a likely locationdetermination of likely spots where an identifying tag can be injectedharmlessly into the title data. For example, the likely spots includeunused space in any and all file headers, a simulated minor disk or filecorruption, encoded or clear text inserted as text comments intospecific file types such as, for example, .html, .pdf, .txt, and thelike. A next step 152 of this embodiment includes inserting aplaceholder tag into the locations that have been determined. A nextstep 154 of this embodiment includes verifying that the title data isstill installable and certifying that the title is ready to be providedto a consumer. A next step 156 of this embodiment 146 of the method 94of watermarking includes generating a correlation map of the locationswhere the placeholder tag has been inserted into the title data.

[0093] It is to be appreciated that each of steps 148, 150, 152, 154 and156 while illustrated as part of this overall second embodiment of themethod of watermarking, can be done at various locations within thesystem of the invention. For example, in one embodiment of the system 10and method of the invention, these steps are done at the service bureau16 prior to encrypting the title data and forwarding the title data tothe central storage facility 12. An advantage of performing these stepsat the service bureau as opposed to, for example, at the delivery device18 is that these steps need only be done once for each title. Incontrast, if these steps are performed at the delivery device, thenthese steps will be performed for each copy of the title data that is tobe provided by the method and system of the invention.

[0094] Where the above steps 148-156 are performed at the servicebureau, the correlation map will be provided to the central storagefacility 12 along with the encrypted title and the decryption key. Inaddition, after the title has been ordered and verification of thecredit card information and generation of the customer ID has occurred,the purchase of the title begins with an order through the entry portal14, and the encrypted title, the correlation map and the decryption keyare provided to the delivery device. The title is then decrypted usingthe decryption key as discussed above.

[0095] A next step 158 in this embodiment 146 of the method ofwatermarking includes with the watermarking device 82, reading thecorrelation map to determine the locations where to insert the customerID, and inserting (step 160) the customer ID into the title data at eachof the placeholder tag locations. After the customer ID has beeninserted into each of the placeholder locations, the title data has nowbeen watermarked and the watermarked title data is handled by thedelivery device as discussed above.

Decoding Device

[0096] Referring to FIG. 8, there is illustrated a decoding device 98including a decoding method 100, that can be used to decode thewatermarked title data to determine the customer ID. The decoding device98 can be used, for example, where a copy of a title is suspected ashaving been copied from an originally purchased copy by, for example,law enforcement officials or by an operator of the decoding device andmethod of the invention, who is authorized to do so. The decoding device98 can include, for example, a PC having a Pentium III processor, 500MHz or higher, running a Windows NT environment, along with a pluralityof playback or reader devices 102 that may be needed in order to read adigital or analog copy that may have been copied from an originallypurchased medium or title data, where such media copies are suspected ofcontaining watermarked data provided by the watermarking method anddevice 84 of the invention. The plurality of reading devices 102 caninclude, for example, a CD reader, a DVD reader, a VHS reader, a CD-ROMreader, as well as any other reading device that may be used to read amedium suspected of having been copied from an originally purchasedtitle.

Decoding Method

[0097] Referring to FIG. 9, in a step 164 of an embodiment of thedecoding method 100 of the invention, the reading device reads thesuspected medium. In another step 166, the decoding device may find aname or other identifying indicia from the copied medium, oralternatively, requests an operator to provide a name or otheridentifying indicia. In a next step 170, the decoding device requeststhat the correlation map be provided. For example, in one embodiment ofthe system 10, the decoding device is coupled to the communicationsnetwork 20, and requests the correlation map from the central storagefacility 12. In response the correlation map is sent to the decodingdevice. In a next step 172, the correlation map is read to determine theplurality of placeholder tag locations, and in a next step 174, thewatermarked title data is read at each of the plurality of placeholderlocations to pull the customer ID from the plurality of placeholderlocations. The decoding device then verifies (step 176) the identity ofthe customer based on the customer ID with the central database with anauthenticated transaction over the communications network.

[0098] Referring to FIG. 10, there is illustrated an alternateembodiment of decoding the method 100 of the watermarked title data.Common steps to the method 100 illustrated in FIG. 9 are illustratedwith like reference numbers. In particular, the decoding device 98 readsthe copied medium 164, finds the identifying indicia (step 166),requests the watermarking key and correlation map from the centralstorage facility 12 (step 170), and reads the watermarking key andcorrelation map to determine the frequency to binary number relationshipand where the title data has been watermarked (step 172). The decodingdevice also requests (step 177) a copy of the reference title data fromthe central storage facility. The decoding device 98 (see FIG. 8)includes a differential comparator 104 that compares (step 178) thewatermarked title data with the reference title data or with a referencetrack or channel of the reference audio title data, to providedifferential data between the watermarked title and the master titledata. The differential data is then decrypted (step 180) with decryptor106 of the decoding device to determine a data set which will unlock thecustomer's ID code. In particular, the decryption device determines thecustomer ID from the frequency to binary number relationship and therandomly selected placement locations.

Entry Portal

[0099]FIG. 11 illustrates a functional block diagram of an embodiment ofthe entry portal 14 of the invention. It is to be appreciated that FIG.11 illustrates a functional block diagram, wherein devices illustratedare not necessarily located within the entry portal, but instead may beaccessible with the entry portal over, for example, the communicationsnetwork 20. In a preferred embodiment, the entry portal is coupled tothe communications network 20, and accesses a web site 184 that isaccessible with any Internet browser. The web site allows review of thetitle database 186 that is preferably the title database 54 at thecentral storage facility 12, and has access to search engine 188 thatallows a consumer to search for a particular title via any of aplurality of criteria. For example, the web site may offer any of music,video, and software titles, for preview, rental, and sell through,wherein the user can search for the title using the search engine 188.The title database 186 includes textual information for each title datafile available with the system 10, whether the title data is located ata local delivery device 18 or whether located at the central storagefacility 12. The title database is updated periodically to reflectadditions to the title database, to ensure that the web site has accessto all available title data files. It is to be appreciated that althoughthis embodiment of the entry portal is illustrated with access to a website, various alterations or modifications to one of skill in the artare intended to be within the scope of the method and system of theinvention. For example, the entry portal can be accessible through anInternet browser via a PC co-located with a delivery device 18 at alocal retail outlet. Alternatively, the entry portal can be, forexample, a dedicated kiosk that performs the same functions and has thesame components, but the web presence is constantly running on thekiosk, and it is co-located with a delivery device at a local retailoutlet.

[0100] It is to be appreciated that the entry portal 14 can display thetitle data within categories, as thumbnails, based on new release dates,or even based on a personal preference of a particular consumer derivedfrom demographics data or prior history data provided by the consumer.For example, the search engine 188 can search the title database 186 andpresent suggested movies to a consumer based upon this user's priorpurchase history or selection history. The entry portal may provide asearch interface 189 including search criteria to assist a consumer inlocating a title. For example, the search engine 188 in combination withthe search interface may allow free form requests such as, “every moviethat Elvis was in”, and also may be capable of taking more subjectivecriteria, such as, “funny war movies.” The search engine may alsosuggest other titles similar to the ones that have been selected.

[0101] The entry portal 14 may also have access to a database 190 ofconsumer IDs and an associated login interface 191 to a login procedure.To access the entry portal, the consumers can identify themselvesthrough the consumer identification process at the login interface 191,whereby such identification may include providing a uniqueidentification code through the web site 184. For example, the consumermay be prompted to either enter a new customer information screen orenter his or her existing PIN number to log in to the web site 184. Whena new user gains access to the web site, the login procedure may requestcertain demographics information from the consumer such as, for example,shipping information, preferences for titles, credit card information,address information, the consumer's name, and the like, to create a userprofile associated with the user ID, that can be stored, for example, inthe central storage facility 12. In addition, the entry portal may haveaccess to a demographics engine 192 that based on the consumer'sdemographic data, can select advertisement data from the advertisementdatabase 56 (see FIG. 2) to be provided to the consumer at the entryportal or inserted into the title as discussed above. In addition, thedatabase of consumer profiles can keep a history of previous titlespurchased by the consumer and, from this information, the demographicsengine can determine whether to present an ad for a particular title tothe consumer based upon the consumer's prior purchases.

[0102] For example, the database of consumer IDs and profiles 190 allowsthe demographic engine 192 to target specific advertising andpromotional messages to be sent to the customer. As discussed above, theconsumer information stored in the database 190 can include, forexample, but not be limited to a name, address, gender, age,entertainment, personal preferences, and the like. Once this informationis provided through the login interface, consumer profile data can besent over the secure communications network 20 to the central storagefacility 12 to be kept in the consumer database 190. Once the uniqueconsumer profile has been stored, it is used in conjunction with theadvertising content data and the demographics engine to direct uniquemessages to the consumer, based on the compiled information contained inthe consumer database. Such messages can be sent, for example, from thecentral storage facility 12 to the entry portal 14 or from the localcache 68 in the delivery device 18, to the entry portal 14. Thesemessages can also include, for example, public service announcements,targeted advertisements and promotions, notifications of special events,and/or facts, and the like. Information from the consumer database canalso be used, for example, to notify the customer based on prior historyinformation, of a current title data file currently available that mayinterest the consumer, or that the consumer has previously purchased aselected title, or that a given artist has recently released a new titlewhich the consumer has previously purchased a number of titles from.With a dynamic process, the customer profile may be continually updatedbased on customer activities via the entry portal 14, and this updatedcustomer data may result in new and unique messages be provided to thecustomer over time.

[0103] The entry portal 14 may also have access to a preview interface194 that is, for example, scalable to any size and that displays highquality previews, for example, of thirty to sixty seconds in length of amovie trailer selected by the consumer for potential purchase or rental.It is to be appreciated that the preview interface can be a custominterface or any existing interface known to those of skill in the artsuch as Real Player from RealNetworks.com.

[0104] The entry portal 14 may also have access to a purchase interface196 that allows a consumer to provide information to effect a creditcard transaction over the secure communications network 20. In addition,the purchase interface can suggest different locations for a user topick up a title at various local retail outlets based on the user'sdemographics. The entry portal may also have access to a collectioninterface 198 that, for example, allows the consumer to build acollection of, for example, audio titles for a CD from multiple audiotitles, and may allow the consumer to specify an order in which tocreate the medium containing the collection of audio titles. Inaddition, the collection interface can allow the user to create customtext and custom graphics to be printed, for example, on a CD, or anyother medium.

[0105] The entry portal 14 may also have access to a schedulinginterface 200 that provides a consumer with the ability to schedule, forexample, a periodic ordering of titles, a periodic creation of media,and/or automatic billing and delivery of media containing selectedtitles. For example, the scheduling interface can allow a consumer tocompile a collection of all news shows for a given week, or all thearchived scheduled broadcasts of sessions of Congress. The schedulinginterface can also allow the consumer to specify where the consumerwants to have the product made or delivered or picked up. Further, thescheduling interface can allow the consumer to have the product made anytime from, for example, from one hour to anytime later. For example, theconsumer may wish the schedule to have a medium burned and ready for theconsumer to be delivered Tuesday of the following week in New York City,because the consumer plans to be on a business trip and wishes to havethe medium waiting at his or her hotel upon arrival. In addition, thescheduling interface can allow a consumer to schedule repeatingpurchases such as, for example, to buy all new releases from Paramountand have them delivered as they are released, and to arrange to bebilled for the titles at the time of their delivery. Another example isthat a consumer may wish to schedule for weekly selections to be createdand delivered to the consumer, or available for pick up at a time andplace specified.

[0106] The entry portal 14 preferably also has access to a statusinterface 202. As has been discussed infra, once a consumer decides tomake a purchase, a secure credit card transaction occurs, and theprocess of delivering the title to the consumer or burning the title forpick up by the consumer begins. As has been discussed above, thistransaction creates a unique consumer ID that is provided, for example,by the entry portal to the delivery device 18 to begin the process. Theconsumer may wish to be able to track the status of his order, and thestatus interface can allow the tracking of the status of the jobincluding when the title has been delivered to the delivery device, andif the title is to be burned on a medium, when the burning of the mediumbegins, and when the burning of the medium is completed. In addition,the status interface may display a time commitment to the consumer suchas, for example, that the medium will be shipped by xx:xx and arrive tothe consumer by yy:yy tomorrow or that the medium will be ready to bepicked up by zz:zz by the consumer at a suggested or selected localretail outlet. It is to be appreciated that the status interface can be,for example, a visual display window within the web site or any othervariation or modification known to one of skill in the art.

[0107] The entry portal 14 can also have access to a master queuemanager 204 that, for example, communicates with the local queue andstatus manager 74 at the delivery device 18 and that communicates withthe status manager device 62 at the central storage facility. The masterqueue manager, for example, can manage an order in which the system and,in particular, the delivery device bums and prints the decryptedselected title data to a selected medium, and interacts with thedelivery device to provide the status interface 202 including the statusindicator. In particular, the master queue manager may allow a user ofthe entry portal 14 with appropriate privileges to control the status ofany order submitted to the method and system 10 of the invention. Forexample, an employee with specified privileges can modify an order of atitle that is to be provided by the delivery device. The master queuemanager can, for example, be used by employees of a local retail outlet.The entry portal, and in particular the web site 184 can have access toother devices typical of retail web sites such as, for example, ashopping cart for holding a customer's selections until purchase,accounting hooks that are part of the purchase interface 196 forallowing a secure credit card transaction to occur via the web site, andthe like. The accounting hooks may, for example, collect the customer'scredit card information and communicate it over the securecommunications network 20 and receive back via a secure communication anapproved order number, and as a result, generate the customer ID numberthat is the basis of beginning the process of delivering a title to theconsumer.

Method Overview

[0108] Referring to FIG. 12, there is illustrated an embodiment of anoverall method 205 of the invention. A first step 206 includes acquiringtitle data from a content provider. As discussed above, the title datacan be music title data, video title data, software title data, graphicsdata, preview data, and the like. The step of capturing the title datacan include capturing advertisement content data and graphics data. Inaddition, the step of capturing the title data can include periodicallyreceiving updated title data from, for example, a subscriber network.Another step 209 includes processing the title data. The step ofprocessing can include, for example, encoding the title data,reformatting the title data, converting the title data from analog titledata to digital title data, compressing the title data, and the like, ashas been discussed herein with respect to the service bureau 16.

[0109] Another step 210 includes encrypting the title data to provideencrypted title data and a corresponding decryption key for each title.The step of encryption can include, for example, determining locationsin the title data to insert placeholder tags, and inserting theplaceholder tags into the title data. The step of encrypting can alsoinclude scanning the title data to determine a plurality of possibleplacement locations for inserting watermarked data into the title data,and can also include segmenting the title data into a plurality ofchunks of data, and providing an decryption key for each chunk. The stepof encrypting can also include dividing movie title data into audiotitle data and video title data and providing an decryption key foreach, all of which have been described herein.

[0110] Another step 212 includes cataloging and storing the encryptedtitle data and its corresponding decryption key. This step of storingthe encrypted title data can also include storing and cataloging thepreview data; storing and cataloging a relationship between each of theencrypted title data, the decryption key, and the preview data; storinga correlation map of locations in the title data where the placeholdertag has been inserted into the title data; and storing a correlation mapbetween the chunks of the title data and the correlation map'srelationship to the title data. In addition, this step of storing andcataloging can include storing and cataloging a plurality of advertisingdata, graphics data, and the like. This step of storing and catalogingcan also include storing a serial number along with the encrypted titledata and updating the content provider's serial number to reflect acustomer ID number upon purchase of the title data. The step of storingcan further include storing a watermarking key including customer IDdata, the relationship between the watermarked title data and binarynumbers, as well as information indicating the plurality of locationswhere title data has been watermarked, all of which have been hereindescribed.

[0111] Another step 213 is a customer previewing summary data of theplurality of title data. This step can include transferring preview datafrom the central storage facility 12 to the entry portal 14 in responseto selection information provided to the central storage facility by,for example, the delivery device 18, so that the preview can be viewedby a consumer, as well as summary descriptions, thumbnails, and thelike. The step can also include transmitting advertising data from thecentral storage facility to the entry portal to be viewed by theconsumer. It is to be appreciated that this step can be accomplished,for example, through an e-commerce web site 184, all of which have beenherein described.

[0112] Another step 214 of the method includes selecting and orderingselected title data. This step can include providing selectioninformation data and customer information data to the communicationsnetwork 20 via the entry portal 14. The step can also include obtainingapproval for the order over a secure communications network, and as aresult of the approval, providing customer information data andselection information data to the delivery device 18. This step can alsobe accomplished, for example, through the e-commerce web site 184. Thisstep can further include sending the title selection information to thedelivery device, all of which have been herein described.

[0113] Another step 216 includes providing the encrypted title data tothe delivery device 18. This step can be in response to receipt of arequest for the encrypted title data and the decryption key from thedelivery device. This step can include providing the correspondingdecryption key to the delivery device. This step can also includetransmitting the correlation map from the central storage facility 12 tothe delivery device. The step can also include transmitting advertisingcontent data, graphics data, and the like to the delivery device. Inaddition, this step of transmitting the advertising content data can bebased upon, for example, demographics information of the customerordering the title data, and/or a prior history of the customer. Thestep can also include transmitting encrypted video title data, encryptedaudio title data, and a corresponding decryption key for each of theencrypted video title data and the encrypted audio title. This step canalso include transmitting a plurality of chunks of the title data, acorresponding decryption key for each chunk, and the correlation maprelating the plurality of chunks of title data. This step can alsoinclude checking a local cache 68 at the delivery device for theencrypted title data, and requesting the encrypted title data from thecentral storage facility only if the encrypted title data is not in thelocal cache, all of which have been herein described.

[0114] Another step 218 of the method is decrypting the encrypted titledata with the corresponding decryption key to provide decrypted selectedtitle data. This step can include decrypting encrypted video title dataand encrypted audio title data with the corresponding decryption key foreach of the encrypted video title data and the encrypted audio titledata, to provide both decrypted selected video title data and decryptedselected audio title data. Alternatively, this step can includedecrypting encrypted audio title data with the decryption key to providedecrypted selected audio title data. This step can further includedecrypting chunks of the title data with the corresponding decryptionkeys and piecing back the title data according to the correlation map,all of which have been herein described.

[0115] Another step 220 of the process can include decoding thedecrypted title data. This step can include decoding a portion of thedecrypted audio title data or the entire audio title data. This step canalso include decompressing the audio title data, all of which have beenherein described.

[0116] Another step 222 of the method is watermarking the decryptedtitle data. The step of watermarking can be accomplished, for example,by either of the above described embodiments 110, 146 of the method 94of watermarking the decrypted title data. The step of watermarking caninclude, for example, watermarking a portion of the decrypted selectedaudio title data to provide a watermarked portion of the decryptedselected audio title data. The step can also include combining thewatermarked portion of the decrypted selected audio title data with thedecrypted selected audio title data, to provide the watermarkeddecrypted selected audio title data. The step of watermarking can alsoinclude combining the watermarked decrypted selected audio title datawith decrypted selected video title data, to provide decrypted selectedtitle data, all of which have been herein described.

[0117] Another step 224 of this embodiment of the method may includeencoding the watermarked title data. For example, where the decryptedtitle data has been decoded, such as audio title data that has beendecompressed, after the audio title data has been watermarked, it isagain encoded and, for example, combined with the remainder of the audiotitle data to provide encoded and watermarked audio title data, all ofwhich have been herein described.

[0118] Another step 226 of this embodiment of the method of theinvention, is inserting advertisement data into the watermarkeddecrypted selected title data. This step can include, for example,selecting the advertising content data from a local cache 68 at thedelivery device 18 or receiving the advertising content data from thecentral storage facility 12. In addition, this step can includeinserting the advertising content data into the decrypted selected titledata. This step can also include printing the advertisement data onpackaging or an insert to the medium on which the watermarked decryptedselected title data is to be burned. This step can also includeselecting the ad data based on any of a plurality of criteria, all ofwhich have been herein described. Another step 228 of this embodiment ofthe method of the invention, is providing the watermarked decryptedselected title data to the consumer. This step can include, for example,providing the watermarked decrypted selected title data to the consumerover an on-demand network, to the consumer over the communicationsnetwork 20 to be enjoyed at the entry portal 14 or to be burned to amedium by a burner co-located within the entry portal, or to be burnedby a burning device 90 located within the delivery device 18. This stepcan also include burning a selected medium with the watermarkeddecrypted selected title data, all of which have been herein described.

[0119] Another step 230 of this embodiment of the method of theinvention, can be printing the medium containing the watermarkeddecrypted selected title data and/or the packaging for the medium. Thisstep can include, for example, printing the medium with graphicsprovided by the content provider, with custom graphics selected by theconsumer, with customer identification information, with a localretailer's information, and the like. In addition, this step can includeprinting the packaging with any of the above information and/or a barcode, all of which have been herein described.

[0120] It is to be appreciated that the method 205 and system 10 of theinvention are readily adaptable to an on-demand architecture such as avideo on-demand architecture. For example, in addition to the deliverydevices described with respect to the system of FIG. 1, separate localor regional delivery devices could be established for providingreal-time, on-demand title feeds to homes, businesses, offices,libraries, and the like. For example, movies requested from the home,business or school library could be provided by the local deliverydevice to, for example, the home via a fiber optic connection, astandard cable connection, or other media depending upon the bandwidthneeded for real-time viewing of the movie title. Alternatively, thetitle data can be provided from the delivery device to a cable head endto provide on-demand service to subscribers, wherein the movie titlewould be played over a dedicated channel at the subscriber's locationand would be delivered to the subscriber by, for example, a fiber opticcable or a standard CATV cable. It is also to be appreciated that aregional telephone company could also have the equivalent of a deliverydevice within its infrastructure, for the delivery of a title on demandto a subscriber location.

[0121] It is to be appreciated that the method 205 and system 10 of theinvention provide a consumer with predictability, and a completeselection and convenience in the purchase of any of, for example,software, movie and music titles. In addition, it is to be appreciatedthat the method and system of the invention provide a reengineeredarchitecture with which to deliver the titles. It is further to beappreciated that the system and method of the invention incorporatesunique, high-security features that, for example, make it possible toprovide both high security copyright protection, in conjunction withon-demand consumer access to title data.

[0122] One advantage of the method 205 and system 10 of the invention iscost savings that result from decreased operating costs, that can resultin increased operating margin, since a local retail outlet need nolonger contain high inventory counts, have high warehousing rates, andhigh costs related to inventory, product obsolescence, and the like.Accordingly, an advantage of the system and method of the invention isthat it provides decreased expenses and higher profit margins toretailers of the title data.

[0123] In addition, another advantage of the method 205 and system 10 ofthe invention is that it provides a faster, more efficient architectureto purchase or rent any of movie, software, and audio titles. It is tobe appreciated that the system and method of the invention can be used,for example, in existing distribution and delivery chains for bothsoftware and movie industries, effectively creating a new architecturethat has the advantages of the invention.

[0124] In addition, it is to be appreciated that the watermarkingmethodology 94 of the invention can be used by any of, for example,content providers, industry organizations seeking improved anti-piracysolutions, or individual companies within affected industries. Inaddition, it is to be appreciated that the watermarking technology ofthe invention complements existing anti-piracy technology. Accordingly,significant value is achieved with the system 10 and method 205 of theinvention, including increased customer choice and product accessspeeds, increased security of the title content material, reducedoverhead costs, and mitigated risks in merchandising the titles.Accordingly, consumers will have the benefit of increased selection anddelivery times, retailers will see decreases in operating costs, andcontent providers will see increased security in distribution of theirproduct.

[0125] It is to be appreciated that security is a hallmark of the method205 and system 10 of the invention. In particular, the method and systeminclude an encryption/decryption device and methodology, wherein thetitle data is not decrypted until a customer has provided a credit cardnumber which has been approved to generate a valid transaction andcustomer ID information. In addition, a decrypted title is neverretained by the system and the decryption key is never retained by thesystem. Moreover, the decrypted title data provided by the system andmethod of the invention is watermarked as a deterrent to piracy of thetitle data, and is intended to work in conjunction with anti-piracyprotection measures to provide increased security to the titleproviders. In addition, movie title data can be separated into bothaudio and video title data, the title data can also be divided intochunks of the title data, which are not combined until the title is tobe decrypted and provided to the consumer, and therefore provides anadded measure of security. Further, the communications network is asecure network that requires authenticated transactions between each ofthe elements of the overall system.

[0126] It is also to be appreciated that with the system 10 and method205 of the invention, it is the goal to provide MPEG-2 quality movietitle data to the consumer in less than an hour. For example, with afiber optic line as the primary communication mechanism between, forexample, the central storage facility 12 and the delivery device 18, itis envisioned that at a speed of 50 to 75 Mbits/second, a full-lengthmovie title can be pushed down the fiber optic line in ten minutes. Addto that five to ten minutes to burn the title which can be reduced, forexample, with a 12× burner and some additional time to print the media,pick it and pack it into its appropriate packaging, and it is envisionedthat the goal of providing the decrypted selected title within an houris achievable.

Conclusion

[0127] Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and describedherein, it will be appreciated by those of skill in the art that theabove embodiments are provided only for the purpose of explaining theApplicant's claimed invention, and it will be appreciated that theApplicant's invention is not limited to what has been particularly shownand described herein above. There are many other applications for whichthe system and methodology of the embodiments of the invention describedare not herein described, but which would be obvious to those of skillin the art in view of the herein described system and methodology. Forexample, the system could be used to pre-manufacture duplications of thetitles at the delivery devices. In addition, each of the above describedelements could be implemented in a number of ways that would be obviousto one of skill in the art. For example, the accounting hooks and systemcould be located at any of the central storage facility, the deliverydevice, or at the entry portal. Another example is that the centralstorage facility can be organized in a number of different ways thatwould be obvious to one of skill in the art. For example, differentconfigurations of data storage equipment could be provided at both thecentral storage facility and at each of the plurality of deliverydevices, in order to implement the central storage facility and thelocal cache herein described. In addition, each of the encryption,decryption, encoding, decoding and data manipulation devices hereindescribed can be performed with software, hardware and/or a combinationof hardware and software. Accordingly, it is to be appreciated that suchmodifications are intended to be within the spirit and scope of theinvention, and that Applicant's invention is limited only by the claimsand the equivalents thereof, which are appended hereto.

What is claimed is:
 1. A system for selecting title data and forproviding selected title data to a customer, comprising: a servicebureau coupled to a communications network, that captures a plurality oftitle data for a plurality of titles, the service bureau including anencryption device that encrypts the title data and provides encryptedtitle data and a decryption key to the communications network; an entryportal coupled to the communications network, that provides summary dataof the plurality of title data, that allows the customer to select andorder the selected title data, and that provides selection informationdata and customer information data to the communications network; acentral storage facility coupled to the communications network, thatreceives the encrypted title data and the decryption key, that catalogsand stores the encrypted title data and the decryption key, and thatupon receipt of the selection information data, provides the encryptedtitle data and the decryption key to the communications network; adelivery device coupled to the communications network, that receives theselection information data and the customer information data, thatrequests the encrypted title data and the decryption key, that includesa decryption device that decrypts the encrypted title data using thedecryption key, and that provides decrypted selected title data; and awatermarking device, that time/frequency modulates at least a portion ofthe decrypted selected title data at a plurality of locations within thedecrypted selected title data, according to a randomly selectedtime/frequency modulation to numbers relationship, to watermark thedecrypted selected title data with the customer information data, andthat provides watermarked title data as the selected title data to thecustomer.
 2. The system as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising thecommunications network which is a secure network that includesauthentication of a source of each transfer of the encrypted title data,the selection information data, the customer information data, thesummary data, and the decryption key.
 3. The system as claimed in claim1 , wherein the service bureau includes a plurality of media readingdevices that capture the plurality of title data.
 4. The system asclaimed in claim 1 , wherein the service bureau is coupled to a widearea network, and the service bureau receives the plurality of titledata from a content provider over the wide area network.
 5. The systemas claimed in claim 4 , wherein the service bureau is coupled to asubscriber network that automatically provides updated title data. 6.The system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the service bureau furthercomprises an audio mastering station that digitizes audio title datainto digitized audio title data, that formats the digitized audio titledata into a selected format and that provides the audio title data asthe title data.
 7. The system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein theservice bureau further comprises an encoding device that receives thetitle data and that splits the title data into audio title data andvideo title data, and wherein the encryption device encrypts both theaudio title data and the video title data, and provides a decryption keyfor each of encrypted audio title data and encrypted video title data.8. The system as claimed in claim 7 , wherein the central storagefacility stores the encrypted audio title data, the encrypted videotitle data, and the decryption key for each of the encrypted audio titledata and the encrypted video title data.
 9. The system as claimed inclaim 8 , wherein the central storage facility also provides to thecommunications network upon receipt of the selection information data,the encrypted video title data, the encrypted audio title data, and thedecryption key for each of the encrypted audio title data and theencrypted video title data.
 10. The system as claimed in claim 9 ,wherein the decryption device in response to receipt of the encryptedaudio title data, the encrypted video title data, and the decryption keyfor each of the encrypted audio title data and video title data,decrypts the encrypted audio title data and the encrypted video titledata to provide decrypted audio title data and decrypted video titledata.
 11. The system as claimed in claim 10 , wherein the deliverydevice further comprises an encoding device that combines the decryptedaudio title data and the decrypted video title data to provide thedecrypted selected title data.
 12. The system as claimed in claim 1 ,wherein the service bureau further includes an encoding station thatdivides up the title data into a plurality of chunks of the title data,and wherein the encryption device encrypts each chunk of the title data,and provides a decryption key for each chunk of encrypted title data anda correlation map defining a correlation between the plurality of chunksof encrypted title data.
 13. The system as claimed in claim 12 , whereinthe central storage facility stores the correlation map, the pluralityof chunks of encrypted title data, and the corresponding decryption keyfor each chunk of encrypted title data.
 14. The system as claimed inclaim 13 , wherein the central storage facility also provides to thecommunications network upon receipt of the selection information data,the correlation map, the plurality of chunks of encrypted title data,and the corresponding decryption key for each chunk of encrypted titledata.
 15. The system as claimed in claim 14 , wherein the decryptiondevice in response to receipt of the plurality of chunks of encryptedtitle data and the corresponding decryption key for each chunk ofdecrypted title data, decrypts each chunk of encrypted title data toprovide a plurality of chunks of decrypted title data.
 16. The system asclaimed in claim 15 , wherein the delivery device further comprises anencoding device that combines the plurality of chunks of decrypted titledata according to the correlation map, to provide the decrypted selectedtitle data.
 17. The system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the servicebureau further includes an encoding device that receives the title dataand encodes the title data into encoded title data.
 18. The system asclaimed in claim 1 , wherein the service bureau further includes anencoding device that determines where in the title data to insert aplaceholder tag, and that inserts the placeholder tag at locationswithin the title data.
 19. The system as claimed in claim 18 , whereinthe encoding device provides a correlation map of the locations wherethe placeholder tag has been inserted into the title data.
 20. Thesystem as claimed in claim 19 , wherein the central storage facilityalso stores the correlation map and a relationship between each of theencrypted title data and the decryption key.
 21. The system as claimedin claim 20 , wherein the central storage facility also provides to thecommunications network upon receipt of the selection information data,the correlation map of the locations where the placeholder tag has beeninserted into the encrypted title data.
 22. The system as claimed inclaim 21 , wherein the delivery device in response to receipt of thecorrelation map of the locations where the placeholder tag has beeninserted into the encrypted title data, inserts the customer informationdata into the placeholder tag of the decrypted selected title data atthe locations identified by the map, to provide watermarked decryptedselected title data.
 23. The system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein thetitle data includes any of both video title data and audio title data,audio title data, and software title data.
 24. The system as claimed inclaim 1 , wherein the service bureau further comprises a local areanetwork and a controller coupled to the local area network, thecontroller including a user interface that allows a user to control anydevice of the service bureau.
 25. The system as claimed in claim 24 ,wherein the controller includes a preview encoding device that receivesthe preview data, formats the preview data, and encodes the preview datato provide formatted and encoded preview data.
 26. The system as claimedin claim 1 , wherein the central storage facility also stores arelationship between each of the encrypted title data, the decryptionkey, and the preview data.
 27. The system as claimed in claim 26 ,wherein the central storage facility provides the preview data to thecommunications network in response to receipt of the selectioninformation data, so that the preview data can be viewed by the customerat the entry portal.
 28. The system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein thecentral storage facility also stores a plurality of advertising contentdata.
 29. The system as claimed in claim 28 , wherein the centralstorage facility upon receipt of the selection information data and thecustomer information data, also provides the advertising content data tothe communications network based on the customer information data. 30.The system as claimed in claim 29 , wherein the central storage facilityalso stores a history of each transaction by a customer, and providesthe advertising content data based on one of demographics data of thecustomer information data and the prior history of the customer.
 31. Thesystem as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the central storage facility alsoincludes an accounting database that includes the customer informationdata, a serial number of the decrypted selected title data, anassociation between the serial number of the decrypted selected titledata and the customer information data, and a record of any royaltiesdue for each decrypted selected title data that has been purchased withthe system.
 32. The system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the deliverydevice responds to receipt of the selection title information data andthe customer information data, checks a local cache for the encryptedtitle data, and if the encrypted title data is not in the local cache,requests the encrypted title data from the central storage facility. 33.The system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein encrypted title data includesencrypted audio title data, and wherein the decryption device decryptsthe encrypted audio title data with the corresponding decryption key toprovide decrypted selected audio title data.
 34. The system as claimedin claim 33 , wherein the delivery device includes a decoding devicethat receives the decrypted selected audio title data, and that decodesat least a portion of the decrypted selected audio title data.
 35. Thesystem as claimed in claim 33 , wherein the watermarking devicewatermarks a portion of the decrypted selected audio title data toprovide a watermarked portion of the decrypted selected audio titledata.
 36. The system as claimed in claim 35 , wherein the deliverydevice includes an encoding device that receives the watermarked portionof the decrypted selected audio title data, and that encodes thewatermarked portion of the decrypted selected audio title data.
 37. Thesystem as claimed in claim 35 , wherein the service bureau includes ascanning device that scans the audio title data to determine one of afrequency deviation between channels of the audio title data and timeintervals within the audio title data for modulating the audio titledata, and that determines a plurality of placement locations formodulating the audio title data that are one of locations where thefrequency deviation is less than a predetermined frequency deviation andtime intervals where time/frequency modulating the audio title data arenot discernible to a human ear, and that provides a correlation map. 38.The system as claimed in claim 37 , wherein the watermarking deviceincludes a watermarking key generator that in response to receipt of thecustomer information data and the decrypted selected audio title data,randomly selects a randomly selected time/frequency modulation andnumber relationship from a plurality of time/frequency modulation andnumber relationships for modulating the decrypted selected audio titledata, and that combines the randomly selected time/frequency modulationand number relationship with the customer information data to provide awatermarking key.
 39. The system as claimed in claim 38 , wherein thecentral storage facility also stores the watermarking key and thecorrelation map.
 40. The system as claimed in claim 38 , wherein thewatermarking device also randomly selects randomly selected locationsfrom the plurality of placement locations, for time/frequency modulatingthe decrypted selected audio title data.
 41. The system as claimed inclaim 40 , wherein the watermarking device includes a waveform modulatorthat receives the watermarking key, time/frequency modulates thedecrypted selected audio title data according to the randomly selectedtime/frequency modulation and number relationship at the randomlyselected locations to insert the customer information data into thedecrypted selected audio title data at the randomly selected locations,and that provides the watermarked portion of the decrypted selectedaudio title data.
 42. The system as claimed in claim 41 , wherein themanufacturing device combines the watermarked portion of the decryptedselected audio title data with the decrypted selected audio title data,to provide watermarked decrypted selected audio title data as thedecrypted selected title data.
 43. The system as claimed in claim 42 ,wherein the encrypted title data includes encrypted video title data,wherein the decryption device also decrypts the encrypted video titledata to provide decrypted selected video title data, and wherein themanufacturing device combines the watermarked decrypted selected audiotitle data with decrypted selected video title data to provide thedecrypted selected title data.
 44. The system as claimed in claim 40 ,wherein the watermarking device selects a channel of the decryptedselected audio title data as a reference channel, and selects anotherchannel of the decrypted selected audio title data as a watermarkedchannel that is time/frequency modulated at the randomly selectedlocations to provide the watermarked channel.
 45. The system as claimedin claim 44 , wherein the watermarking device randomly changes thereference channel and the watermarked channel.
 46. The system as claimedin claim 1 , wherein the delivery device further comprises anadvertising insertion device that one of receives advertisement contentdata from the communications network and that selects advertisementcontent data from a local cache, and that inserts the advertisementcontent data into the selected title data.
 47. The system as claimed inclaim 1 , wherein the delivery device provides the selected title datato a title on demand network.
 48. The system as claimed in claim 1 ,wherein the delivery device provides the selected title data to thecommunications network so that it can be accessed by the customer at theentry portal.
 49. The system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein thedelivery device includes a burning device that burns a selected mediumwith the selected title data.
 50. The system as claimed in claim 49 ,wherein the delivery device further includes a printer that prints anyof the selected medium, a label for the selected medium, and packagingfor the selected medium, with any of vendor identification data,customer information data, graphics data and a bar code.
 51. The systemas claimed in claim 49 , wherein the delivery device further includes alocal queue and status manager device that allows a user with specifiedprivileges to manage an order in which the selected title data isburned.
 52. The system as claimed in claim 51 , wherein the entry portalis coupled to a master queue manager device that allows a user withcertain privileges to manage an order in which the system provides theselected title data, and that provides a status indicator of a status ofan order submitted to the system.
 53. The system as claimed in claim 1 ,wherein the delivery device further comprises a local cache storing aplurality of encrypted title data that can be changed according toselected criteria.
 54. The system as claimed in claim 53 , wherein theselected criteria can be configured to delete least-ordered encryptedtitle data.
 55. The system as claimed in claim 53 , wherein the selectedcriteria can be configured to ensure the specified encrypted title dataare not purged from the local cache.
 56. The system as claimed in claim1 , wherein the entry portal is coupled to an electronic commerce website.
 57. The system as claimed in claim 1 , wherein the entry portal iscoupled to accounting hooks that allow the customer to submit an orderand obtain approval for the order, and that provides the customerinformation data to the communications network.
 58. A method ofselecting title data and delivering selected title data to a customer,the method comprising the steps of: capturing a plurality of title datafor a plurality of titles; encrypting the plurality of title data forthe plurality of titles to provide a plurality of encrypted title dataand a corresponding decryption key for each encrypted title data;cataloging and storing the plurality of encrypted title data and eachcorresponding decryption key at a central storage facility; previewingsummary data for the plurality of title data with an entry portalcoupled to a communications network; selecting and ordering the selectedtitle data through the entry portal, and providing selection informationdata and customer information data to the communications network; inresponse to receipt of the selection information data via thecommunications network by the central storage facility, transmitting theencrypted title data corresponding to the selected title data and thecorresponding decryption key via the communications network; in responseto receiving the encrypted title data and the corresponding decryptionkey, decrypting the encrypted title data with the decryption key toprovide decrypted selected title data; time/frequency modulating atleast a portion of the decrypted selected title data at a plurality oflocations, according to a randomly selected time/frequency modulation tonumber relationship, to watermark the decrypted selected title data withthe customer information data, and to provide watermarked title data;and providing the watermarked title data to the customer as the selectedtitle data.
 59. The method as claimed in claim 58 , wherein the step ofcapturing the title data includes capturing preview data.
 60. The methodas claimed in claim 59 , wherein the step of capturing the preview dataincludes formatting the preview data and encoding the preview data toprovide formatted and encoded preview data.
 61. The method as claimed inclaim 59 , wherein the step of cataloging and storing includescataloging and storing the preview data, and a relationship between eachof the encrypted title data, the decryption key, and the preview data.62. The method as claimed in claim 61 , wherein the step of transmittingincludes transmitting the preview data from the central storage facilityto the entry portal in response to the receipt of the selectioninformation data by the central storage facility, so that the previewdata can be viewed by the customer.
 63. The method as claimed in claim58 , wherein the step of capturing the plurality of title data includesreceiving the plurality of title data over a wide area network from acontent provider.
 64. The method as claimed in claim 63 , wherein thestep of capturing the title data further includes periodically receivingupdated title data from a subscriber network.
 65. The method as claimedin claim 58 , wherein the step of capturing the title data includesdigitizing audio title data and formatting the audio title data into aselected format.
 66. The method as claimed in claim 58 , wherein thestep of capturing the title data includes splitting the title data intovideo title data and audio title data, and wherein the step ofencrypting the title data includes encrypting both the audio title dataand the video title data, and providing a decryption key for each of theencrypted audio title data and encrypted video title data.
 67. Themethod as claimed in claim 66 , wherein the step of cataloging andstoring includes storing the encrypted audio title data, the encryptedvideo title data, and the decryption key for each of the encrypted audiotitle data and the encrypted video title data.
 68. The method as claimedin claim 67 , wherein the step of transmitting the encrypted title dataincludes transmitting the encrypted video title data, the encryptedaudio title data, and the decryption key for each of the encrypted audiotitle data and the encrypted video title data.
 69. The method as claimedin claim 68 , wherein the step of decrypting the encrypted title dataincludes decrypting the encrypted audio title data and the encryptedvideo title data with the decryption key for each of the encrypted audiotitle data and the encrypted video title data, to provide decryptedaudio title data and decrypted video title data.
 70. The method asclaimed in claim 69 , further comprising the step of combining thedecrypted audio title data and the decrypted video title data to providethe decrypted selected title data.
 71. The method as claimed in claim 58, further comprising the step of dividing up the title data into aplurality of chunks of the title data, and wherein the step ofencrypting the title data includes encrypting each chunk of the titledata, providing a corresponding decryption key for each chunk ofencrypted title data, and a correlation map defining a correlationbetween the plurality of chunks of encrypted title data.
 72. The methodas claimed in claim 71 , wherein the step of cataloging and storingincludes storing the correlation map, the plurality of chunks ofencrypted title data, and the corresponding decryption key for eachchunk of encrypted title data.
 73. The method as claimed in claim 72 ,wherein the step of transmitting includes transmitting the plurality ofchunks of encrypted title data, the corresponding decryption key foreach chunk of encrypted title data, and the correlation map.
 74. Themethod as claimed in claim 73 , wherein the step of decrypting includesdecrypting each chunk of encrypted title data with the correspondingdecryption key to provide a plurality of chunks of decrypted title data.75. The method as claimed in claim 74 , further comprising the step ofcombining the plurality of chunks of decrypted title data according tothe correlation map to provide the decrypted selected title data. 76.The method as claimed in claim 58 , further comprising the step ofencoding the title data into encoded title data.
 77. The method asclaimed in claim 58 , further comprising the steps of determining aplurality of locations in the title data to add placeholder tag data,inserting the placeholder tag data into the title data at the pluralityof locations and providing a correlation map of the plurality oflocations where the placeholder tag data has been inserted into thetitle data.
 78. The method as claimed in claim 77 , wherein the step ofstoring includes storing at the central storage facility the correlationmap of the plurality of locations where the placeholder tag has beeninserted into the title data.
 79. The method as claimed in claim 78 ,wherein the step of transmitting the encrypted title data includestransmitting the correlation map of the plurality of locations where theplaceholder tag data has been inserted into the title data.
 80. Themethod as claimed in claim 79 , further comprising the step of insertingthe customer information data into the placeholder tag of the decryptedselected title data at the plurality of locations identified by thecorrelation map to provide the watermarked title data.
 81. The method asclaimed in claim 58 , wherein the step of capturing the title dataincludes capturing any of both video title data and audio title data,audio title data, and software title data.
 82. The method as claimed inclaim 58 , wherein the step of cataloging and storing includescataloging and storing a plurality of advertising content data.
 83. Themethod as claimed in claim 82 , wherein the step of transmittingincludes transmitting the advertising content data, in response to thecentral storage facility also receiving the customer information data.84. The method as claimed in claim 83 , wherein the step of storingincludes storing a history of a customer of each transaction, and thestep of transmitting the advertising content data includes selecting theadvertising content data based on one of demographics information withinthe customer information data and based on the history of the customer.85. The method as claimed in claim 58 , further comprising the step ofassociating a serial number of the decrypted selected title data withthe customer information data, and storing the serial number, thecustomer information data and the association between the serial numberand the customer information data at the central storage facility. 86.The method as claimed in claim 58 , further comprising the step ofchecking a local cache for the encrypted title data, and if theencrypted title data is not in the local cache, requesting the encryptedtitle data from the central storage facility.
 87. The method as claimedin claim 58 , wherein the encrypted title data includes encrypted audiotitle data, and wherein the step of decrypting the encrypted title dataincludes decrypting the encrypted audio title data with the decryptionkey to provide decrypted selected audio title data.
 88. The method asclaimed in claim 87 , further comprising the step of decoding at least aportion of the decrypted selected audio title data.
 89. The method asclaimed in claim 87 , wherein the step of watermarking includeswatermarking a portion of the decrypted selected audio title data toprovide a watermarked portion of the decrypted selected audio titledata.
 90. The method as claimed in claim 89 , further comprising thestep of encoding the watermarked portion of the decrypted selected audiotitle data.
 91. The method as claimed in claim 89 , wherein the step ofcapturing the title data includes scanning the audio title data todetermine one of a frequency deviation between channels of the audiotitle data and time intervals within the audio title data for modulatingthe audio title data, and determining a plurality of placement locationsfor modulating the audio title data that are one of where the frequencydeviation is less than a predetermined frequency deviation and the timeintervals where time/frequency modulating the audio title data are notdiscernible to a human ear.
 92. The method as claimed in claim 91 ,wherein the step of watermarking the portion of the decrypted selectedaudio title data includes randomly selecting a randomly selectedtime/frequency modulation and number relationship from a plurality oftime/frequency modulation and number relationships for modulating thedecrypted selected audio title data, and combining the randomly selectedtime/frequency modulation and number relationship with the customerinformation data to provide a watermarking key.
 93. The method asclaimed in claim 92 , further comprising the step of storing thewatermarking key at the central storage facility.
 94. The method asclaimed in claim 92 , wherein the step of watermarking further includesrandomly selecting randomly selected locations from the plurality oflocations, to time/frequency modulate the decrypted selected audio titledata.
 95. The method as claimed in claim 94 , further comprising thestep of time/frequency modulating the portion of the decrypted selectedaudio title data according to the randomly selected time/frequencymodulation and number relationship at the randomly selected locations,to insert the customer information data into the portion of thedecrypted selected audio title data and provide the watermarked portionof the decrypted selected audio title data.
 96. The method as claimed inclaim 95 , further comprising the step of combining the watermarkedportion of the decrypted selected audio title data with the decryptedselected audio title data, to provide watermarked decrypted selectedaudio title data.
 97. The method as claimed in claim 96 , wherein theencrypted title data also includes encrypted video title data, and thestep of decrypting includes decrypting the encrypted video title data toprovide decrypted selected video title data; and further comprising thestep of combining the watermarked decrypted selected audio title datawith the decrypted selected video title data to provide the decryptedselected title data as the selected title data.
 98. The method asclaimed in claim 94 , wherein the step of watermarking further includesselecting a channel of the decrypted selected audio title data as areference channel and selecting another channel of the decryptedselected audio title data as a watermarked channel, and wherein the stepof time/frequency modulating is performed on the watermarked channel toprovide the watermarked channel of the decrypted selected audio titledata.
 99. The method as claimed in claim 98 , wherein the step ofwatermarking further includes randomly switching the reference channeland the watermarked channel of the decrypted selected audio title data.100. The method as claimed in claim 58 , further comprising the step ofone of selecting advertising content data from a local cache andreceiving the advertising content data from the central storagefacility, and inserting the advertising content data into the selectedtitle data.
 101. The method as claimed in claim 58 , further comprisingthe step of providing the selected title data to a title on demandnetwork.
 102. The method as claimed in claim 58 , further comprising thestep of providing the selected title data to the communications networkso that it can be accessed by the customer at the entry portal.
 103. Themethod as claimed in claim 58 , further comprising the step of burning aselected medium with the selected title data.
 104. The method as claimedin claim 103 , further comprising the step of printing any of theselected medium, a label for the selected medium, and packaging for theselected medium with any of vendor identification data, the customerinformation data, graphics data and a bar code.
 105. The method asclaimed in claim 103 , further comprising the step of managing an orderin which the selected title data is burned.
 106. The method as claimedin claim 103 , further comprising the step of providing a status of theorder to a customer that submitted the order.
 107. The method as claimedin claim 58 , further comprising the step of storing a plurality ofencrypted title data in a remote storage location other than the centralstorage facility, according to selected criteria.
 108. The method asclaimed in claim 107 , further comprising the step of configuring theselected criteria to delete least-used encrypted title data.
 109. Themethod as claimed in claim 107 , further comprising the step ofconfiguring the selected criteria so that specified encrypted title dataare always stored at the remote storage location.
 110. The method asclaimed in claim 58 , wherein the steps of previewing, selecting andordering the selected title are done through an electronic commerce website.
 111. The method as claimed in claim 58 , wherein the step ofordering the selected title includes obtaining approval for the orderand as a result of the approval, providing the customer information dataand the selection information data.
 112. A method of watermarking titledata, the method comprising the steps of: scanning the title data todetermine a plurality of placement locations for modulating the titledata; randomly selecting a randomly selected time/frequency modulationand number relationship from a plurality of time/frequency modulationand number relationships; and time/frequency modulating at least aportion of the title data at the plurality of locations according to therandomly selected time/frequency modulation and number relationship, towatermark the title data with customer identification data, andproviding watermarked titled data.
 113. The method as claimed in claim112 , further comprising the steps of: generating a watermarking keythat is a combination of the customer identification data and therandomly selected time/frequency modulation and number relationship; andstoring the watermarking key in a secure database.
 114. The method asclaimed in claim 113 , wherein the step of generating the watermarkingkey includes generating a unique watermark key for each watermarkedtitle data.
 115. The method as claimed in claim 112 , wherein the titledata is audio title data.
 116. The method as claimed in claim 115 ,further comprising the step of decoding at least a portion of the audiotitle data.
 117. The method as claimed in claim 115 , wherein the stepof scanning the title data includes scanning the audio title data todetermine the plurality of locations where one of a frequency deviationbetween channels of the audio title data is less than a predeterminedfrequency deviation, and time intervals within the audio title data fortime-frequency modulating the audio title data where the time/frequencymodulating of the audio title data is not discernible to a human ear.118. The method as claimed in claim 117 , wherein the step of randomlyselecting includes randomly selecting from the plurality of placementlocations, randomly selected locations where the audio title data willbe time/frequency modulated.
 119. The method as claimed in claim 118 ,wherein the step of time/frequency modulating includes time/frequencymodulating the audio title data according to the randomly selectedtime/frequency modulation and number relationship at the randomlyselected locations, to insert the customer identification data into theaudio title data at the randomly selected locations.
 120. The method asclaimed in claim 117 , wherein the step of scanning includes selecting achannel of the audio title data as a reference channel, and selectinganother channel of the audio title data to be time/frequency modulatedas a watermarked channel.
 121. The method as claimed in claim 120 ,wherein the reference channel and the watermarked channel are randomlychanged.
 122. The method as claimed in claim 115 , wherein thewatermarked title data is watermarked audio title data, and furthercomprising the step of encoding the watermarked audio title data. 123.The method as claimed in claim 122 , further comprising the step ofcombining the watermarked audio title data with a remainder of the audiotitle data to provide the watermarked audio title data.
 124. The methodas claimed in claim 116 , further comprising the step of combining thewatermarked audio title with corresponding video title data to providethe watermarked title data.
 125. The method as claimed in claim 112 ,further comprising the step of storing reference title data for use whendecoding the watermarked title data.
 126. The method as claimed in claim112 , further comprising the step of burning a selected medium with thewatermarked title data.
 127. The method as claimed in claim 112 ,further comprising transmitting the watermarked title data to acustomer.
 128. The method as claimed in claim 112 , further comprisingthe step of receiving an decryption key and decrypting encrypted titledata to provide the title data.
 129. The method as claimed in claim 112, further comprising the step of decoding encoded title data to providethe title data.